Moses and His Companion’s Return to the Meeting Place

When Moses’s companion told him about the fish falling into the sea near the rock

When his companion reported this, Moses the Speaker told him that this was the place they had been seeking and looking for, where the special sign had been realized: “He said: That is what we have been seeking”.(83) They wanted to reach the meeting of the two seas (majmaʿ al-baḥrayn), and their sign was that wherever the fish fell into the sea, that would be their meeting place. However, Moses’s companion had forgotten to report to him about the fish falling into the sea at that location, so they had to carefully return along the same path. Therefore, they returned along the same route they had come, following the exact path and their footsteps: “So they returned, following their footsteps” until they reached the rock and the meeting place.

From the phrase “That is what we have been seeking, so they returned,” it appears that Moses had been divinely commanded to meet Khiḍr at the meeting of the two seas, and the story of the fish was the sign of the meeting place—either specifically its coming back to life or its falling into the water at that location, or in a more general and ambiguous sense, such as the loss of the fish, its revival, or the renewal of life from death. Therefore, when he heard the story of the fish from his companion, they both returned to the appointed place.(84)

The phrase “following their footsteps precisely” (ʿalā āthārihimā qaṣaṣan) means to follow traces and footprints; that is, they carefully returned along the same path they had come. The expression “qaṣaṣan” is similar to “quṣṣīhi” in the story of Moses’s mother when, after casting the basket carrying him into the Nile, she told her daughter to follow it and see where it would go and who would take it. “Quṣṣīhi” means “follow it” (itbaʿīhi).