Al-Kahf · Makki · ayah 82 of 110

Al-Kahf 18:82

وَأَمَّا ٱلْجِدَارُ فَكَانَ لِغُلَـٰمَيْنِ يَتِيمَيْنِ فِى ٱلْمَدِينَةِ وَكَانَ تَحْتَهُۥ كَنزٌ لَّهُمَا وَكَانَ أَبُوهُمَا صَـٰلِحًا فَأَرَادَ رَبُّكَ أَن يَبْلُغَآ أَشُدَّهُمَا وَيَسْتَخْرِجَا كَنزَهُمَا رَحْمَةً مِّن رَّبِّكَ ۚ وَمَا فَعَلْتُهُۥ عَنْ أَمْرِى ۚ ذَٰلِكَ تَأْوِيلُ مَا لَمْ تَسْطِع عَّلَيْهِ صَبْرًا

“And as for the wall, it belonged to two orphan boys in the city, and there was beneath it a treasure for them, and their father had been righteous. So your Lord intended that they reach maturity and extract their treasure, as a mercy from your Lord. And I did it not of my own accord. That is the interpretation of that about which you could not have patience."”

Saheeh International

Essence

The word for the treasure means dates trodden down into a basket until it is packed tight and sewn shut.

A reflection

Your Lord intended, and I did not do it myself

This is where the three explanations arrive, and the grammar is the lesson.

At the boat: I intended. At the boy: we intended. Here: your Lord intended.

So the widening is complete, and it ends with a sentence in which no human being is the agent at all.

And then the plainest line in the whole passage. I did not do it of my own accord.

So the man who has been doing extraordinary things for three days, in front of a prophet, finishes by removing himself from all of them.

That is the end of the ego's last hiding place in this story. The reader has spent the whole journey assuming there are two kinds of person: one who understands and one who does not.

There are not. There is one who was told and one who was not, and the one who was told says so.

A man can find his own name on a plaque for a bridge he only measured. He did measure it. The measurements were correct and the bridge stands. Reading his name on the stone, he knows exactly which part of it was his.

And the verse adds something no reader should skip. Twice in one sentence it says: your Lord. Not the Lord. Not my Lord.

He addresses Musa's ownership of the one who arranged it.

So the final word on a stranger's bewildering conduct is handed back to the bewildered man as something belonging to him.

It was your Lord. And it was a mercy from your Lord. And none of it came from me.

The full entry has 7 more reflections, questions to sit with, and "Live it today" - with the words, the roots and the tafsir alongside. Free, no account, works offline.