Encyclopedia of Islam

Khadir

 

(Khidr, Khezr, Hizir)

 

legendary man 

believed to be immortal, to possess divine wisdom, and 

to have inspired Sufis

At the time of Islam’s appearance in the seventh 

century there was a large pool of myths and leg-

ends in the Middle East from which Muslims soon 

drew to enrich their understandings of the past, 

of life and death, and of the sacred. Khadir was a 

figure who seems to have been a kind of magnet 

for such stories in the early Muslim community. 

His name means “the green one,” which gave 

rise to attempts to explain why a man would be 

associated with this color. Some accounts say it 

derives from belief that his color was a result of 

having gained immortality by drinking water from 

the miraculous spring of life. They also associated 

his color with plant life and fertility, and that the 

earth turned green wherever he stood or prayed. 

By some accounts he was among only four men 

believed to have ever attained immortality, the 

other three being Elijah, i

dris

, and J

esUs

. Stories 

that he lived on a distant island or at the meet-

ing place of two seas and of his ability to assist 

people far from home made him a patron saint of 

sailors living on the shore of s

yria

 or a deity for 

those traveling in the Indian Ocean region. An 

ambulance service in t

Urkey

 today is named after 

him, in honor of his ability to assist others in time 

of need.

K  428  

Khadir

---

The Dutch scholar A. J. Wensinck proposed 

that elements in his story were related to the Epic 

of Gilgamesh of ancient Mesopotamia and to the 

Romance of a

leXander

 

the

  g

reat

 of the Late 

Antique era (third century to eighth century 

c

.

e

.). 

All three story cycles involved heroic figures who 

traveled to the limits of the known world and 

uncovered hidden secrets. Khadir even appeared 

as a companion of Alexander in his quest for the 

spring of life in Arabic versions of the legend. 

Indeed, Khadir was famous in Islamic tradition 

for his knowledge of the unseen. So much so, in 

fact, that some Muslim scholars even ranked him 

among the prophets, thinking that his insights 

could have come only from a divine source. i

bn

i

shaq

 (d. 767) included a chapter on Khadir in his 

collection of prophets’ tales, equating him with 

the biblical prophet Jeremiah and relating how 

he interceded on behalf of the wayward Children 

of Israel with God. In p

alestine

 and Syria Khidr 

is associated with the Christian Saint George for 

reasons that are not entirely clear.

Although Khadir was never mentioned in 

the  q

Uran

, the majority of commentators iden-

tified him with an unnamed “servant” of God 

mentioned in its 18th chapter (Q 18:60–82). 

This passage was a legend about the journey of 

Moses to the meeting place of the two seas, which 

some commentators said was located between the 

seas of Byzantium and Persia (the Gulf)—per-

haps in the Suez region. There he encountered 

one of God’s servants (Khadir), who had been 

given the gift of God’s mercy and knowledge. 

m

oses

 asked to travel with him so that he might 

acquire some of his knowledge. Khadir reluctantly 

agreed on the condition that Moses promise not 

to ask questions and be patient in his quest for 

knowledge. During their travels, Khidr, acting 

like the trickster known to the legends of the 

Native Americans, did three shocking things. He 

scuttled a boat in which they were sailing, he 

killed a young man without provocation, and he 

built a crumbling wall without charge. Moses lost 

his patience at each incident, much to Khadir’s 

chagrin, and demanded an explanation. Exasper-

ated at Moses’s inability to grasp the meaning of 

his deeds, Khadir at last explained himself. He 

scuttled the boat because a tyrannical king was 

about to take it from its impoverished owners. 

He killed the youth because he was destined for 

a troubled life that would bring only grief to his 

faithful parents. Lastly, he built the wall to pro-

tect a buried treasure belonging to two orphans 

so that they had a means of support when they 

grew up. In each instance, Khadir demonstrated 

an uncanny knowledge about the future, which 

he attributed to God. Later commentators saw in 

the story the interplay of two kinds of knowledge. 

One, possessed by Moses, was knowledge of the 

material world and its apparent meanings. The 

other, possessed by Khadir, represented knowl-

edge of the invisible world of the spirit and its 

deeper meanings.

Sufis have drawn inspiration from Khadir 

because of his knowledge of the unseen, his 

close relation to God, his capacity for travel, and 

his ability to flout conventions in order to teach 

deeper truths. He was an exemplary guide (mur-

shid or pir) who could lead them to immortality, 

breaking their ties to the material world. Several 

mystics, including i

bn

 

al

-a

rabi

 (d. 1240), claim to 

have met him and been initiated by him into the 

Sufi way. Among the Twelve-Imam Shia, Khadir is 

believed to have a close association with the 12th 

Imam, who is in Occulatation (

ghayba

). A mosque/

shrine complex in Jamkaran, Iran (near the holy 

city of Qom), has become a popular pilgrimage site 

where people go to seek the assistance of both Kha-

dir and the 12th Imam. Ismailis note that Khadir 

practices  tawil (esoteric interpretation, Q 18:78) 

when he explains his troubling actions to Moses, 

thus affirming a key method used in interpreting 

scripture to arrive at its hidden (batini) meaning. 

Alawis in Turkey fast for three days in honor of 

Khadir. Many mosques in Muslim countries have 

been named after him. In addition to the shrine in 

Jamkaran, other shrines dedicated to Khadir exist 

on the island of Abadan (Iran) in the Persian Gulf,