“You Will Never Be Able to Have Patience”

Qur’an 18:67 · Al-Kahf · With other exegetes

قَالَ إِنَّكَ لَن تَسْتَطِيعَ مَعِىَ صَبْرًا

He said: ‘Indeed, you will not be able to have patience with me’ (18:67)

The question

When Khiḍr tells Moses you will never be able to have patience with me, does the verse show, as the Ashʿarīs argue, that a person has no capability for an act before he does it?

Views answered: Fakhr al-Rāzī, for the Ashʿarīs · al-Jubbāʾī · With: ʿAllāmah Ṭabāṭabāʾī

Jawādī Āmulī’s argument

Fakhr al-Rāzī presses the Ashʿarī argument: had Moses had the capability for patience beforehand, God’s word you will never be able would have been false, so capability cannot precede the act. He reports al-Jubbāʾī’s answer that the verse speaks of difficulty, not inability, and rejects it as leaving the apparent meaning without proof. Āyatullāh Jawādī Āmulī holds that al-Rāzī’s reply is incorrect: the conventions of speech must be respected, and difficulty is often expressed as a negation of capability, so the verse cannot be made to deny capability before an act; that question needs its own investigation. Following his teacher, he explains what the verse does negate: Moses could not bear Khiḍr’s method of teaching, not the knowledge itself.

Views compared

The views are given as al-Tasnim reports them, with a link to ʿAllāmah Ṭabāṭabāʾī’s passage in al-Mizan. Each point opens al-Tasnim at that place.

What the Ashʿarīs draw from the verse Read →

Fakhr al-Rāzī, for the Ashʿarīs

If the capability for an act existed before the act, Moses would have had the capability for patience; then you will never be able to have patience with me would be false. So capability does not exist before the act.

Jawādī Āmulī

It is not easy to derive from God’s words that capability before a future act is negated, so that the problem of falsehood would arise. The question itself needs its own investigation, not just the apparent wording.

“You will not be able”: difficulty, not inability Read →

al-Jubbāʾī, the Muʿtazilite

The verse means patience was hard for Moses, not that he lacked the capability, as one says “he cannot bear to see him”, and as in they were not able to hear (11:20).

Fakhr al-Rāzī

This departs from the apparent meaning without any proof, which is not permitted; and the next verse, how can you have patience…, rules patience out without knowledge.

Al-Rāzī’s reply to al-Jubbāʾī Read →

Fakhr al-Rāzī

Since God ruled our patience unlikely, we can be certain that capability does not exist before the act.

Jawādī Āmulī

Al-Rāzī’s reply is incorrect: the conventions of speech cannot be ignored, and what is difficult is often expressed as a negation of capability.

What the verse negates Read →

ʿAllāmah Ṭabāṭabāʾī

Patience depends on capability; the verse negates Moses’ patience by negating its cause, his grasp of the reality behind what Khiḍr did. In al-Mizan ↗

Jawādī Āmulī

Builds on it: Moses could not bear Khiḍr’s method of teaching, not the knowledge itself, just as he was told of the calf beforehand without reacting, and was angered only on seeing it.

Reading guide

Each step opens al-Tasnim at that point.

1. What capability (istiṭāʿa) means
2. The Ashʿarī argument from the verse, as Fakhr al-Rāzī states it
3. Al-Jubbāʾī’s answer: patience was difficult for Moses
4. Al-Rāzī’s reply to al-Jubbāʾī
5. Jawādī Āmulī: al-Rāzī’s reply is incorrect
6. The ʿAllāmah: patience negated through its cause
7. Not the knowledge, but the method of teaching

The whole commentary on 18:66–68 → · ʿAllāmah Ṭabāṭabāʾī on 18:67 in al-Mizan ↗