A Discussion of the Narrations

1) Why Moses Could Not Exercise Patience

In al-ʿIlal from al-Ṣādiq (a.s.): Khiḍr said to him: “Indeed, you will never be able to have patience with me” because I have been entrusted with knowledge that you cannot bear, and you have been entrusted with knowledge that I cannot bear. Moses said to him: “Rather, I will be patient with you.” Khiḍr replied to him: “Indeed, there is no place for analogy (qiyās) in God’s knowledge and command.”(192) Note: Setting aside the discussion of the chain of transmission, neither is reliance on jurisprudential analogy befitting Moses the Interlocutor, nor is rejection of demonstrative analogy appropriate for Khiḍr, because rational demonstration is evident in many religious texts, and an example of this can be examined in the validity of revelatory rationality as embodied in verse 165 of Sūrah al-Nisāʾ. Therefore, one should not think that Khiḍr, with the statement “Indeed, analogy…” rejected demonstrative analogy that leads to certainty.

2) The Epistemic Distinction Between Moses and Khiḍr

[ʿAlī ibn Ibrāhīm said:] Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī ibn Bilāl narrated to me from Yūnus who said: Yūnus and Hishām ibn Ibrāhīm disagreed about which of the two was more knowledgeable—Moses or the sage whom Moses sought—and whether it was possible for there to be an authority over Moses during his time while he was God’s authority over His creation… So they wrote to Abū l-Ḥasan al-Riḍā (a.s.) asking him about this. He wrote in response: “Moses came to the sage and found him on an island among the islands of the sea… Moses greeted him but he denied the greeting since it was in a land where there was no greeting. He asked: ‘Who are you?’ He replied: ‘I am Moses son of ʿImrān.’ He said: ‘Are you Moses son of ʿImrān whom God spoke to directly?’ He said: ‘Yes.’ He asked: ‘What is your need?’ He said: ‘I have come that you may teach me from what you have been taught of right guidance.’ He replied: ‘I have been entrusted with a matter you cannot bear, and you have been entrusted with a matter I cannot bear.’”(193)

From Hishām ibn Sālim from Abū ʿAbdallāh (a.s.) who said: “Solomon was more knowledgeable than Āṣaf, and Moses was more knowledgeable than the one he followed.”(194)

From Abū ʿAbdallāh (a.s.) from his father who said: “While Moses was sitting among a group of the Children of Israel, a man said to him: ‘I do not see anyone more knowledgeable about God than you.’ Moses said: ‘I do not see [anyone more knowledgeable].’ So God revealed to him: ‘Yes, My servant Khiḍr,’ and he asked for the way to find him…”(195)

From Abū ʿAbdallāh (a.s.) who said: “Moses ascended the pulpit… and thought to himself that God had not created anyone more knowledgeable than him. Then Gabriel came to him and said: ‘You have been tested (ubtulīta), so descend, for there is someone on earth more knowledgeable than you, so seek him out…’ Then a bird came and landed on the seashore—then it dipped its beak and said: ‘O Moses! The knowledge you have taken from your Lord is like what my beak has carried from all the sea….’”(196)

Note:

a) Excellence is of two types:

i) Bilateral and in the form of distinction

ii) Unilateral and in the form of privilege.

The Qur’an has enumerated privileged (unilateral) excellences in two instances: The superiority of some prophets and messengers over others: “We have made some prophets excel others”(197); “Those messengers—We made some excel others”(198); It also states that prophets and messengers are not of the same rank, although one must believe in all of them: “We make no distinction between any of His messengers”.(199) They are divine agents, infallible in conveying divine laws, and aware of divine rulings, and believers make no distinction between them in this regard. Therefore, in unilateral excellence, which is privilege, some prophets and messengers are superior to others; but in bilateral excellence, two prophets, messengers, or divine saints may each excel in different aspects; like Moses and Khiḍr, where Moses possessed excellence in religious law while Khiḍr excelled in the knowledge of esoteric interpretation (taʾwīl). Thus, one cannot consider either of them absolutely superior to the other.

The distinction between Moses and Khiḍr was bilateral and differential, not unilateral and privileged. God wanted him, in his ascending arc based on “My Lord, increase me in knowledge”(200), to learn esoteric interpretation through Khiḍr. According to ʿAllāmah Ṭabāṭabāʾī, this also reconciles the apparent contradictions in the narrations, as their types of knowledge were different.(201)

b) Narrations suggesting that Moses, after receiving the tablets (Torah) and divine knowledge, thought no one was more knowledgeable than him, and that God commanded an angel to reach him before his destruction(202), are not authentic. Moses would never make such a claim.

c) It is not unlikely that Moses was more knowledgeable than Khiḍr in religious law (sharīʿa), just as Khiḍr may have been more knowledgeable than him in esoteric interpretation (taʾwīl). Indeed, in the descending arc they knew what they needed to know, but in the ascending arc they progressed according to “My Lord, increase me in knowledge.”