He answered, “Did I not tell you that you would never be able to stay patient with me?” This rebuke was sterner than the first. Moses said, “If I question you about anything after this, then do not keep me in your company; you have already received from me an excuse.” [18:76]

They set off again until they came to the people of a town. They asked its inhabitants for food, but the townsfolk refused to host them. In the town they found a wall that was about to collapse—it was leaning over—so al-Khidr placed his hand on it and set it upright. Moses said, “We came to these people and they gave us neither food nor hospitality; if you wished, you could certainly have taken a wage for it!” [18:77]

Al-Khidr said, “This is the parting between me and you. I shall tell you the interpretation of what you could not bear patiently.” The Messenger of God—may God bless him and grant him peace—commented: “We would have loved it if Moses had been patient, so that God might have related to us more of their story.” (1)

Saʿīd ibn Jubayr said: Ibn ʿAbbās used to recite, “Ahead of them was a king who seized every sound ship by force,” and he would also recite, “As for the boy, he was a disbeliever, while his parents were believers.”

Al-Bukhārī (2) likewise transmitted it from Qutaybah, from Sufyān ibn ʿUyaynah, with his chain, in similar wording. In that recension it says:

Moses went out accompanied by his attendant Yūshaʿ ibn Nūn, taking the fish with them until they reached the rock and alighted there. Moses rested his head and fell asleep. Sufyān said: In a narration other than that of ʿAmr it is mentioned that at the base of the rock there is a spring called “the Spring of Life”; nothing touches its water without coming to life. Some of that water reached the fish, so it moved, slipped out of the basket, and entered the sea.

When he awoke Moses said, “Bring us our morning meal; we have certainly met with…” and he continued the account. He also related that a sparrow landed on the edge of the boat and dipped its beak into the sea. Al-Khidr said to Moses, “My knowledge and yours, and the knowledge of all creatures, compared with God’s knowledge, is only like the water that this sparrow has taken with its beak,” and he narrated the rest of the ḥadīth.

Al-Bukhārī said: Ibrāhīm ibn Mūsā narrated to us; Hishām ibn Yūsuf informed us that Ibn Jurayj informed them: Yaʿlā ibn Muslim and ʿAmr ibn Dīnār related to me from Saʿīd ibn Jubayr—one of them adding something over what the other narrated—and I have heard others besides them transmit it from Saʿīd ibn Jubayr. He said:

We were with Ibn ʿAbbās in his house when he said, “Ask me whatever you wish.” I said, “O Abū ʿAbbās—may God make me your ransom—there is in Kūfah a storyteller named Nauf who claims that he (al-Khidr’s companion) is not the Prophet of the Children of Israel.” ʿAmr leaned toward me and said, “The enemy of God has lied!” Yaʿlā, however, reported to me that Ibn ʿAbbās said:

Ubayy ibn Kaʿb narrated to me that the Messenger of God—may God bless him and grant him peace—said:

“Moses, God’s Messenger, once admonished the people. Their eyes overflowed with tears and their hearts became tender. When he turned away, a man caught up with him and said, ‘O Messenger of God, is there anyone on earth more knowledgeable than you?’ He replied, ‘No.’ So God reproached him because he did not refer knowledge back to God. He was told, ‘Indeed there is.’ He said, ‘My Lord, where is he?’ He was told, ‘At the meeting of the two seas.’ He said, ‘My Lord, appoint for me a sign by which I may know it.’”

ʿAmr told me: He was told, “It is where the fish leaves you.” Yaʿlā told me: He was told, “Take a dead fish, and wherever it is brought to life….” (3)