18:67 “Surely thou wilt not be able to bear patiently with me.”
The meaning according to true understanding is this allusion: “O Moses, the secret core of your disposition has such expansiveness because of the marks giving witness to the Divinity that you say, 'Show me, that I may gaze upon Thee!' [7:143]. I who am Khi?r do not have the power and strength to pass these words over my heart or to busy my thoughts with them. Your ruling authority will not be able to put up with the grief of my deprivation. Surely thou wilt not be able to bear patiently with me.”
As for the breaking the ship in the sea, killing the boy, and repairing the wall, each of these, in keeping with the understanding of the Folk of Findings, alludes to a great principle. It is said that the sea is the sea of recognition. Each of the one hundred twenty and some thousand center points of sinlessness dove into that sea with his community and people in the hope that from that sea they would gather the pearls of tawḥīd in the skirt of seeking, for “He who recognizes himself has recognized his Lord.”
The ship is the ship of human nature. Khi?r wanted to ruin and break that ship with the hand of tenderness, for the owners of the ship were “indigent” [miskīn], and their attribute was “tranquility” [sakīna]. The Court of Eternity had addressed them with these words: “He it is who sent down tranquility into the hearts of the faithful” [48:4]. When Muṣ?afā saw the Real's self-disclosure of Majesty to the hearts of the indigent, he said, “O God, give me life as an indigent, give me death as an indigent, and muster me among the indigent!” When Khi?r ruined the ship of mortal nature with the hand of tenderness, Moses saw that outwardly it was adorned and flourishing with the ornament of the Shariah and the Tariqah. He said, “Have you made a hole in it to drown its folk?” [18:71]. Khi?r responded, “And behind them was a king [18:79]: Behind its flourishing was a king, a Satan who had prepared the ambush of severity in the neighborhood of the ship so that he might take the ship with his severity and deception and travel in it by night and day, for 'Satan runs in the children of Adam like blood.' We took away this adornment and flourishing with the hand of tenderness so that, when Satan comes like a king, he will see it ruined outwardly, and he will not come near it.”
As for the boy whom Khi?r killed and Moses' disavowal of the act, this is an allusion to the wishes and fancies that stick up their heads from a man's makeup in the playing field of discipline and the crucible of struggle. He said, “I have been commanded to strike off the head of everything not related to faith with the sword of jealousy. Once fancies mature, the result is that a man becomes a disbeliever in the Tariqah. In the world I ambush them at the beginning of the road of disbelief so that they will return to their own measure.”
As for the wall that he repaired, that is an allusion to the serene soul. When he saw that it had become pure and cleansed in the crucible of struggle and was about to become nothing, he said, “O Moses, do not let it become nothing, for it is the rightful due of that Threshold to receive its service. Repairing its outwardness and taking into consideration its inwardness are obligatory for everyone. 'Surely your soul has a rightful due against your.' Beneath it have been placed the treasuries of the secrets of Eternity. If this wall of the soul is laid low, the lordly secrets will fall onto the plain, and every worthless nonentity will crave to have them.”
The secret in these words is that the treasure of the Haqiqah has been placed in the attributes of mortal nature, and the stages of the clay of the poor were made its curtain. This is exactly what that chevalier said:
“Seek the religion from the poor, for reigning kings
have the custom of keeping treasures in ruined places.” [DS 466]
It has also been said that when Khi?r said about the ship, “I desired to damage it” [18:79], he was reporting that he alone desired that; he said, “I desired to damage it,” observing courtesy by ascribing to himself the desire for damage. When he reached the talk of the slain boy, he said, “We desired” [18:81], because within it was killing, and killing is something earned by the created thing, whereas creation is God's bounty. When he reached the talk of the two orphans, he said, “So thy Lord desired that they should reach their maturity” [18:82], for there was none of his own acquisition in that.
Ibn ʿA?āÌ said, “When Khi?r said, 'I desired,' it was revealed to him in his secret core, 'Who are you that you should have desire?' So the second time he said, 'We desired,' and it was revealed to him in his secret core, 'Who are you and Moses that you two should have desires?' So he returned and said, 'Your Lord desired.'”