Moses’ Warning About al-Khiḍr’s Action

The phrase “You have certainly done a terrible thing” is Moses’ specific warning about al-Khiḍr’s action, not about him personally. It means that your action will cause the ship’s people to drown, not that you intend to drown the people of the ship.

All of Moses’ specific questions to al-Khiḍr were to understand the mystery behind his actions. Therefore, it was an appropriate question arising from Moses’ religious zeal when, upon witnessing an action that appeared to lack religious justification, he asked about its reason, as he considered himself responsible for preserving religious law and thus could not tolerate anything contrary to it.

It should be noted that although some exegetes consider the word “terrible” (amr) from “imran” to mean a corrupt deed that must be commanded against to be corrected(237), given the infallibility of the two personalities mentioned in the story, the intended meaning of “amr” here is an important matter and a strange, questionable action.