Chapter 18 ‘The Cave’ الكهف; An interpretation (Part 2)

In Part 1, which we’ve dedicated to explaining the fundamental concepts, or rather concept, that one must be acquainted with before any understanding of the chapter can be achieved. In this, we shall turn inward, towards the analysis of key verses.There are a few things that must first be noted. 

1. Properly understanding what a word means illuminates the whole verse inasmuch as any given verse can illuminate a whole concinnity (chapter) as from any expression, irrespective of its size may be derived certain connotations which will give us an idea of the direction of the verse or chapter, though in the chapter, a deeper and prolonged analysis is necessary.

2. Every concinnity in the Quran is a composite of excerpts, we find for instance, that the story of the cave is an anthology of short stories, so are Chapters 2, 3, 8, take your pick. They’re all anthologies. Extracts from major narratives. 

Why this or that part of the story is chosen and why they’re placed in the order in which they’re found is a question that pertains to the logic of the verse, or if a chapter, then, to the overall logic of the Quran, and can only be answered once the ‘moral of the story’, as we say, or in the whole, the moral of each story, is reached.

But this ‘moral’ is not like normal stories where it’s open to interpretation because the author is obviously not omniscient that every minute element of his story, every implication, every presupposition, every potential contradiction is accounted for, rather, the ‘moral’ in the quranic sense, given the omniscience of its author, is apodictic or necessary, that is, where a novel, a film, a poem, or even a real-life event/situation may seem to resemble another or may seem to belong to some ‘general’ species of human inclination, but whose precise nature and mechanics eludes human reasoning, so much so that it’s dismissed as arbitrary, the Quran knows that they are and exemplifies them, or let's the Quran specifically addresses them, so much so that every implication is known, accorded its precise place in the book, and elaborated upon elsewhere, this way all the elements of the corpus are systematized, and no element escapes its grasp, which is the problem with human works.

The Quran codifies these recurring historical motifs that punctuate human history and presents us with their best examples, rather, quintessential examples. For instance, there are numerous examples of scientific discovery, yet the Quran cites Abraham and his story over all of them, because the object of discovery here is what all discoveries made in any and all fields are approximating, as in this discovery Abraham confronts the first principle that underlies all things as well as formulates a the universally and eternally valid epistemological cannon by which to attain it. 

وَكَذَٰلِكَ نُرِىٓ إِبْرَٰهِيمَ مَلَكُوتَ ٱلسَّمَـٰوَٰتِ وَٱلْأَرْضِ وَلِيَكُونَ مِنَ ٱلْمُوقِنِينَ ٧٥

We also showed Abraham the wonders of the heavens and the earth, so he would be sure in faith.

6:75-79

إِنِّى وَجَّهْتُ وَجْهِىَ لِلَّذِى فَطَرَ ٱلسَّمَـٰوَٰتِ وَٱلْأَرْضَ حَنِيفًۭا ۖ وَمَآ أَنَا۠ مِنَ ٱلْمُشْرِكِينَ ٧٩

I have turned my face towards the One Who has originated the heavens and the earth—being upright—and I am not one of the polytheists.”

79

Or take the story of the man of knowledge who mentors Moses in chapter 18, who perpetrated acts which, though justified in their objective, don’t seem to have any relation to one another on the surface; killing the child to have his parent conceive a new one, compromising the ship to save its workers, and raising the wall that’s verging to collapse to render the treasure hidden beneath it easier to find by the two orphans.

What correlation can these three stories possibly have?, and why three stories in particular?. To answer this is to answer the harder and more elusive question of how the man knew to target these things, or what sort of knowledge allowed him to prognosticate with such accuracy?. This can only be answered by saying that the man had been acquainted with the same logical ‘formula’ that underlies the chapter, that decided how many stories should be included in it, their types, lengths, order-- i.e the phenomenon, which the Quran calls ‘The Cave’. 

That’s right, as noted in the previous chapter, the ‘Cave’ is not just a place, it’s a phenomenon, as evidenced by the first of the four stories. It’s given here that the young men sought refuge in the cave, but what makes it eerie is the phenomena that take place within it, particularly, that of time dilation, which is what made us draw the analogy between the cave and blackholes.

A Triadic Structure

We discerned a triadic structure in the story, abnegation, transition, and rejuvenation.

In other words a transition from a decaying and ruinous state, towards a promising future (perhaps the image evoked when gazing at the constellation of Orion) and the phenomenological conundra that manifest during the transition. The same triadic pattern is written all over the story of Moses and his mentor. Note the equivalence between the boy’s abnegation, their desertion of their society and their ways, and the man’s vandalism of the ship, his killing of the boy which they meet not long thereafter. In justifying his acts to the dumbfounded Moses, we read that he feared that the boy, if allowed to live, would trouble his parents, expressing his wish that God would compensate them with a better one. We also read that he only sabotaged the ship so as to save its workers from extortion.

أَمَّا ٱلسَّفِينَةُ فَكَانَتْ لِمَسَـٰكِينَ يَعْمَلُونَ فِى ٱلْبَحْرِ فَأَرَدتُّ أَنْ أَعِيبَهَا وَكَانَ وَرَآءَهُم مَّلِكٌۭ يَأْخُذُ كُلَّ سَفِينَةٍ غَصْبًۭا 79

“As for the ship, it belonged to some poor people, working at sea. So I intended to damage it, for there was a ˹tyrant˺ king ahead of them who seizes every ˹good˺ ship by force.

وَأَمَّا ٱلْغُلَـٰمُ فَكَانَ أَبَوَاهُ مُؤْمِنَيْنِ فَخَشِينَآ أَن يُرْهِقَهُمَا طُغْيَـٰنًۭا وَكُفْرًۭا 80

“And as for the boy, his parents were ˹true˺ believers, and we feared that he would pressure them into defiance and disbelief.

فَأَرَدْنَآ أَن يُبْدِلَهُمَا رَبُّهُمَا خَيْرًۭا مِّنْهُ زَكَوٰةًۭ وَأَقْرَبَ رُحْمًۭا 81

So we hoped that their Lord would give them another, more virtuous and caring in his place.

وَأَمَّا ٱلْجِدَارُ فَكَانَ لِغُلَـٰمَيْنِ يَتِيمَيْنِ فِى ٱلْمَدِينَةِ وَكَانَ تَحْتَهُۥ كَنزٌۭ لَّهُمَا وَكَانَ أَبُوهُمَا صَـٰلِحًۭا فَأَرَادَ رَبُّكَ أَن يَبْلُغَآ أَشُدَّهُمَا وَيَسْتَخْرِجَا كَنزَهُمَا رَحْمَةًۭ مِّن رَّبِّكَ ۚ وَمَا فَعَلْتُهُۥ عَنْ أَمْرِى ۚ ذَٰلِكَ تَأْوِيلُ مَا لَمْ تَسْطِع عَّلَيْهِ صَبْرًۭا 82

“And as for the wall, it belonged to two orphan boys in the city, and under the wall was a treasure that belonged to them, and their father had been a righteous man. So your Lord willed that these children should come of age and retrieve their treasure, as a mercy from your Lord. I did not do it ˹all˺ on my own. This is the explanation of what you could not bear patiently.

There’s here a clear sense of abnegation, but to see it, we must switch our perspective so as to, in some way, see the events happen from the perspective of the cave, to see the man as a living embodiment of the cave, and the sailors, the child’s parents, the two orphans whose treasure awaits them as, metaphorically, the young who sought refuge in the cave. And to see each of these different stories as specifically expressing one of three distinct functions of the cave. As a deterrent, as a transformer, and as an expeditor or facilitator. It deterred extortion in the case of the ship workers, transformed or reversed the parents’ parental ordeal by killing the child, and expedited, by raising the ramshackle wall so as to make the treasure accessible to the orphans. 

The difference between the last two, the killing of the child and raising the wall is that in the latter the treasure was already there, underground, waiting for them. Clearly, the treasure situation warrants the role of facilitator or expeditor more so than the other, giving the facticity or contemporaneity of the treasure with the orphans as opposed to the possibility or the mere conceivability of a new child to the parents. We see that what determines each function is its orientation of the subject, a facilitator or expeditor more directly pertains to the ‘good’ and ‘favored’ outcome, whereas the transformer stresses the ‘transformative’, ‘reconstructive’, ‘reversal’ side of things, the killing of the boy, time dilation in the case of the boys of the cave, the building of the barrier. It’s obvious here that all the other scenarios are also transformative, but what’s unique about transformation as one of the cave’s functions, is the emphasis on the ‘details’ of transformation, the logistics, the practical stuff. 

Whereas facilitation sees its objective or prospect, and deterrence, the a menace, an omin, the bugbear (the past), in transformation we stand in between, so to speak, the menacing past, and the favorable future; it’s what creates that contrast between the two, and in perceiving the contrast, we’re so situated as be able to look both ways, i.e assume either view, this completes the triad, and gives a complete conceptual reality to the Cave, so that, in looking back, at the bugbear, we’re deterring, or when looking at the future, we’re expediting or facilitating, and in connecting the two, we’re seeing the transition from one to the other, or the reverse which we see in second story; the man whose pride and avarice causes him to lose his garden; incidentally, Toynbee identifies this phenomenon, this reversal of one's gifts and endowments, as a major cause for the breakdown of civilizations, recall pharaoh, Noah’s people, aad عاد, etc..

These are examples of the negative side transformation. This transitive phenomenon is why we used the term apodictic in reference to Quranic narratives, as they’re all modeled after the narrative structure named the cave’, as in Kant’s system, apodictic judgment is that which connects two others and creates a sense of continuity between them, and it’s what allows a premise to have a conclusion, vice versa. 

Now what’s noteworthy, as far as this triad, is how they’re arranged in the story of Dhu al Qarnayn; we see here no actual transition, but a stalemate, the barrier which he built simply stands there, steadily separating two outcomes, showing neither a positive transition like the mentor, nor a negative transition like the man of the garden.   

قَالَ مَا مَكَّنِّى فِيهِ رَبِّى خَيْرٌۭ فَأَعِينُونِى بِقُوَّةٍ أَجْعَلْ بَيْنَكُمْ وَبَيْنَهُمْ رَدْمًا

He responded, “What my Lord has provided for me is far better. But assist me with resources, and I will build a barrier between you and them.

As we can see, each of the four examples in as much as the situations which they contain, embody a unique aspect and function of the cave, and must therefore be approached and read with that in mind. Now, the stories of the garden, Moses and dhul ‘Qarnayn’ (ذو القرنين), only show us the effects of the phenomenon, human actions, cause and effect, an action and its repercussion, not the physics, as it were, of it all, the more cosmic, if you will side of things. These are found, and are made front and center in the first story, The cave goers cave, where we get a closer look at how it appears from a first-person perspective, here we find ourselves on the receiving end of the cave. What would things look like from such a viewpoint?. We often hear stories of how a seeming coincidence changed a whole person’s life, take as an approximate example, Newton’s apple, J.K Rowling’s Delayed train from Manchester to London, the car accident that almost took the life of Hamza Yusuf, or, to the prophet’s side, Joseph’s well, Abraham’s fire, Jonah’s whale, Moses’ escape from Egypt, and his  how each of these events utterly transformed the person’s life.

Such events are deemed significant and borderline ‘miraculous’ because, in some sense, they should not have happened, or, they almost didn’t happen, they’re a once in a lifetime event, and this fact gives them the same sense as ‘time-travel’, of going from one time-line to another, to an alternative reality. We see this, in the ‘sailers’ case, narrowly escaping a dire situation, of the orphans eventually digging up their treasure. Notice also that all-too-familiar sense of ‘destroying’ so as to build, the recurring pattern, typically at the beginning, of creative destruction’. Sabotaging the ship, killing the child, or in the cave-dwellers’ case shunning their community (as Abraham did). The youngsters didn’t just leave their society but used the cave to insulate themselves from it, and this has everything to do with the length of time they’d spent in the cave. 

This insulation was necessary as the whole point of the transition performed by the cave is to cross into a completely different reality, or timeline, terminating that original which this ‘benign apparatus’, the cave, treats as a failed project, hence the ship situation, the killing of the child, both of which, outrageous though it is on the surface, things which hardly any vigilante would dare to try, obtain their validity from a cosmic and universal principle that’s every bit as consistent with how we perceive nature to work; as we know, Islam’s whole rationale rests entirely on eschatology, everything, though particularly us human beings, has a destiny toward which we’re headed, life as we know it, is a transition, in a way reminiscent of the cave’s function, into a common destination, the hereafter, Al-Akhera الاخرة (about which we made a whole video); which means ‘ultimate’, in contrast to ‘dunya’ which means penultimate, or the ‘stage that precedes the last’. 

Success or failure in this life is exclusively measured by this. In this setting, and for any given person, there’re, like in Borges’ garden of forking paths, multiple, rather countless, scenarios in which one’s life can play out, but all but one is valid, only one successfully gets you to your destination, paradise, while all others doom you to failure or hellfire; Dalal الضلال, is the word used in the Quran, and which appears in translations, as ‘misguided’. 

Plausible a term though it is a general expression of what’s going on, the sense in which it’s used in the Quran is much deeper; where for instance, we see it used in the context of death and dissolution, where a body is torn to shreds.

وَقَالُوٓا۟ أَءِذَا ضَلَلْنَا فِى ٱلْأَرْضِ أَءِنَّا لَفِى خَلْقٍۢ جَدِيدٍۭ ۚ بَلْ هُم بِلِقَآءِ رَبِّهِمْ كَـٰفِرُونَ

˹Still˺ they ask ˹mockingly˺, “When we are disintegrated into the earth, will we really be raised as a new creation?”

We see here that Dalal is a reference to a state in which something is as far as can be from what it should be, or as ‘opposite’ to its true state as opposition can allow, evoking the sense of all or nothing, canceling out all that’s in between. In this same manner is your life evaluated, there’s only one possibility, and that is deontically living how you’re meant to live, i.e ‘Islam’, which, at its basis, is a religion of ‘abnegation’ or ‘renunciation’ as the model of Abraham portrays

وَأَعْتَزِلُكُمْ وَمَا تَدْعُونَ مِن دُونِ ٱللَّهِ

As I distance myself from ˹all of˺ you and from whatever you invoke besides Allah 19:48),

--the very man who, we’re told, came up with the name ‘Islam’ (verse)

مِّلَّةَ أَبِيكُمْ إِبْرَٰهِيمَ ۚ هُوَ سَمَّىٰكُمُ ٱلْمُسْلِمِينَ

It is He who has named you - in bygone times as well as in this [divine writ] - "those who have surrendered themselves to God"

, a faith that always starts off as an exception, to lift societies that have long been blanketed by layers of dogma.

Such is the function of the cave, in that, it starts off with ‘reversal’, with creative destruction; this is the painful peeling back of the layers of dogma; of desertion, of running a ship aground, of killing a child, these acts are related, those discussed under the problem of evil; like why, if God’s so loving and just, should there be suffering and death in the world?; well, Moses had the same say; in no way is killing this child justifiable, or so he thought at the moment, in no way is compromising this ship so full of workers justifiable, in no way should you, the man lending a hand to these orphans by heaving this wall not be paid for doing so. 

These questions are equivalent. It’s no wonder why, from all the lessons that can be learned from this particular segment, the notion of ‘patience’ (Sabr) as regards the problem of evil, should be recognized first. But what’s yet ambiguous, is the connection that this little encounter has with the exodus, where we see Moses applying the same principle that he’d learned from the man. A parallel can be drawn between the ship which the man sabotaged in order to save its workers from the extortionist king and the extraction of the people of Israel from Egypt and its tyrant. Their displacement and the Killing of the child, the lifting of the wall, and the bringing down of the commandments.  

You may ask what killing the child has to do with the people of Israel having been displaced; the answer is that, as all the acts read, killing the child is symbolic, it expresses the fact that by deserting that reality, it’s as though you killed the version of yourself that would still be there; as Borges aptly puts it in his short story

“In all fictional works, each time a man is confronted with several alternatives, he chooses one and eliminates the others”

J.L Borges 'The Garden Of The Forking Paths'

The keyword here is ‘eliminate’, as, by choosing to desert, to opt-out, they, in practice, eliminated all other possibilities that aren’t this, the weight of this act makes it equivalent to killing, and, as we know, god tells the people of Israel that taking one life is like taking all lives and restoring one is like restoring all lives.

هُ مَن قَتَلَ نَفْسًا بِغَيْرِ نَفْسٍ أَوْ فَسَادٍ فِي الْأَرْضِ فَكَأَنَّمَا قَتَلَ النَّاسَ جَمِيعًا وَمَنْ أَحْيَاهَا فَكَأَنَّمَا أَحْيَا النَّاسَ جَمِيعًا ۚ وَلَقَدْ جَاءَتْهُمْ رُسُلُنَا بِالْبَيِّنَاتِ ثُمَّ إِنَّ كَثِيرًا مِّنْهُم بَعْدَ ذَٰلِكَ فِي الْأَرْضِ لَمُسْرِفُونَ (32).

and whoever saves a life, it will be as if they saved all of humanity.

The parents whom the man says are to be compensated with a new, better and more righteous child, are a personification of the idea of destiny, for that’s what parents ultimately symbolize, as joseph’s vision tells us; the mischief which the child would have brought upon his parents is equivalent to ‘not living one’s purpose’ and following ones destiny; if the sole reason that we’re alive at all is to fulfill that purpose for which we were created, and if the parent symbolizes this said purpose, then not living one’s purpose is not different from being a problem child. 

Thus killing this child proves necessary with respect to this objective; perhaps explains the meaning behind the recurring expression

أَقَتَلْتَ نَفْسًۭا زَكِيَّةًۢ بِغَيْرِ نَفْسٍۢ لَّقَدْ &  قَتَلَ نَفْسًا بِغَيْرِ نَفْسٍ 

“Have you killed an innocent soul, who killed no one?

, which seems to express a sense of ‘trading lives’, that the act of ‘killing’, in this case, an innocent soul, is only justified if done under such circumstances as the man of knowledge demonstrates in the chapter. And this undertaking, this act of killing so as to ‘raise anew’, or as we called it, creative destruction, shows another aspect, if not a core aspect of the cave. That the cave ultimately is a mechanism that performs acts of this same nature. Thus it’s very interesting, and quite serendipitous to see how those wild stunts we see performed by the man, and which then stupefied Moses are reenacted by him in his mission of taking his people out of Egypt. 

The one area in which this activity occurs is in the very practice or craft that feeds us, agriculture. Here, we find the same triadic principle, before any ‘farming’ takes place, one must first find fertile land, now the planting of seeds, the soil is first ‘tilled’; tilling the soils is decisive, we’re here transforming the land from whatever state it was in, into a state of fertility, putting it into commission. The land could have been used as something else, but its true value, its true ‘use’, appears in its ‘fertility’, its ability to become fruitful, to give out. It’s in this sense that anything can be said to be truly living its purpose: it's actively expressing its nature, that which it contains. The tilling enlivens the soil, this act cancels out the previous state of the soil, rendering a new state; the object of this is to transform the land, and to bring out its true value; the Cave carries exactly the same function but with respect to individuals, this is where the symbol of the cow, a symbol of culture, represents the transformative impulse, before the introduction of the cave. The cave’s function begins with this impulse supplied by the cow, and performs the transformative activity/process.