Moses and Khidr: Consciousness Between the Two Seas of Reason and Intuition

by Laleh Bakhtiar

There have been many commentaries over the centuries on the story of the meeting of Moses and someone more knowledgeable than he at the junction between the two seas, one sweet (reason) and one salty (intuition). However, most of the commentaries assume that the story refers to Prophet Moses (peace be upon him) whereas the Quran does not mention that it was Prophet Moses. Clear arguments are presented in this analysis that the meeting occurred before Moses was granted prophethood and even questions if the Moses in this story is the Moses who became a prophet. In addition, most commentators assumed that the story took place in real time, whereas according to the analysis, it occurred in a dream as someone more knowledgeable than Moses, designated as Khidr by most commentators, is someone who appears in dream visions. He has knowledge of that which proceeds from the Presence of God without human intermediary ( ilm laduni). This work contains three commentaries. The first is by Seyyed Qutb, a commentary based on reason. The second is by Abd al-Razzak Kashani, a follower of Ibn Arabi, a commentary based on intuition. The third commentary is actually a case study of what begins as a narration and quickly becomes an anagoge that is analyzed based on Quranic psychology. According to Kashani, Moses is the symbol of the heart. In Quranic psychology, the heart refers to consciousness (nafs al-mulhamah or the inspired soul). The analysis is, then, the journey of consciousness from the sweet sea to the salty sea, from reason to intuition.

Genres: Islam

94 pages, Paperback

Published July 1, 2019

Reviews

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book references Q18:60-82. It splits into 3 main parts -
1. A commentary based on reason
2. A commentary based on intuition
3. An analysis based on Quranic Psychology. This is probably half of the book and is worth 'studying' versus 'reading' if you aren't familiar with the content. There is a lot of useful information covered in a very short span of pages.