Selected Exegesis

This verse begins explaining the true meaning of al-Khiḍr’s actions regarding damaging the ship: The ship that al-Khiḍr damaged was a source of income for poor and needy people who earned their living by carrying cargo or passengers at sea. Al-Khiḍr, in protection of these disadvantaged people, damaged the ship so that the oppressive king who was in that region, and who would seize every sound ship by force, would not covet their ship and take it from them forcefully.