and I was hoping for blessing through you.”

Al-Khidr said, “I believe in Allah; I have nothing I can give you—unless you take me and sell me.”

The beggar asked, “Would that even be permissible?”

He replied, “Yes. In truth I tell you, you have requested something momentous, yet, since you have invoked the Face of my Lord, I will not send you away disappointed. Sell me.”

So the man took him to the market and sold him for four hundred dirhams. Khidr stayed with the purchaser for some time, and the man did not employ him in anything.

Khidr said to him, “You only bought me seeking some good you thought I possessed; so give me a task.”

The man replied, “I hesitate to burden you; you are an old, weak man.”

Khidr said, “You will not burden me.”

The man said, “Then move these stones.” Those stones could not ordinarily be moved by fewer than six men in an entire day. The man went out on an errand, and when he returned he found that Khidr had moved the stones within an hour.

He exclaimed, “You have done splendidly and gracefully—you accomplished what I never imagined you could.”

Later the man needed to travel and said, “I deem you trustworthy; look after my family well while I am away.”

Khidr said, “Then give me something to do.”

The man answered, “I dislike to trouble you.”

Khidr said, “You will not trouble me.”

The man said, “Make bricks for my house until I return.” The man departed on his journey, and when he came back he found the building solidly erected.

He said, “I ask you by the Face of Allah—tell me your story and your true state.”

Khidr replied, “You have asked me by the Face of Allah, and being asked by the Face of Allah cast me into servitude. I will tell you who I am: I am al-Khidr of whom you have heard. A needy man once asked me for charity, and I had nothing to give him. He invoked the Face of Allah, so I yielded my own neck to him and he sold me. Know that whoever is asked by the Face of Allah and refuses the petitioner while he is able to give will stand on the Day of Resurrection with nothing but skin—no flesh and no bone—rattling (1).”

The man said, “I believe in Allah. I wronged you, O Prophet of Allah, without knowing.”

Khidr answered, “No harm done; you have acted well and shown kindness.”

The man said, “May my father and mother be your ransom, O Prophet of Allah. Decide concerning my family and my wealth as Allah shows you (2), or, if you prefer, I will set you free.”

He said, “I would prefer that you set me free so that I may worship my Lord.” So he set him free.

Al-Khidr said, “Praise be to Allah who placed me in bondage and then delivered me from it.”

This ḥadīth’s attribution to the Prophet is mistaken; it is more likely mawqūf. In its chain are narrators who are unknown—Allah knows best (3).

Ibn al-Jawzī related it in his book ʿUjālat al-Muntaẓir fī Sharḥ Ḥāl al-Khidr (4) through the route of ʿAbd al-Wahhāb b. al-Ḍaḥḥāk (5)—who is discarded—from Baqiyyah.

Al-Ḥāfiẓ Ibn ʿAsākir also reported, with his chain to al-Suddi, that Khidr and Elijah were brothers and that their father was a king. Elijah said to his father, “My brother Khidr has no desire for sovereignty; if only you would marry him off, perhaps a child would be born through whom the kingship might continue …”