The Holy Quran with Five Volume Commentary (Vol 3) — Page 687
PT. 16 AL-KAHF CH. 18 وَأَمَّا الْعُلَمُ فَكَانَ آبَوهُ مُؤْمِنَيْنِ فَخَشِيْنَا And as for the youth, his. 81 أنْ تُرْهِقَهُمَا طُغْيَانًا وَكُفْرًان parents were believers, and we feared lest he should cause them trouble through rebellion and disbelief. 2119 The words, 'poor people' here represent the meek of heart whom material prosperity and abundance of wealth do not prevent from taking care of and sympathizing with the needy and the destitute and from associating with them. The expression 'a king' denotes love of the world and attachment for material things. The verse thus means to say that those proud and conceited sons of darkness who disdain to spend their money on philanthropic purposes are wholly lost in the love of this world and fall easy victims to Satan. This is why the Holy Prophet sought to make a hole in the boat of his people he laid down such laws as should render their love of this world pierced with the love of the next world so that they should spend their money in the service of the oppressed and the down-trodden and instead of tyrannizing over them they should serve them and sympathize with them. It is worthy of note that whereas in the Holy Prophet's Vision the love of the world took the form of an old woman, in Moses' vision it was represented by a cruel king. This signified that the love of the world and its pleasures would exercise much less influence over the followers of the Holy Prophet than over those of Moses. 2119. Commentary: As explained under 18:75 above (youth) in a vision signifies, activity or buoyancy, power and ignorance; and the word as also shown under the same verse means, diminishing or lessening the effect or vehemence of a thing. In view of the significance of these words, the killing of the youth would signify the lessening or diminishing the evil effects of ignorance, too much power and uncontrolled buoyancy. The expression (his parents) here means the human body and soul, because the parents or the source from which spring all moral qualities is the combination of the human body and soul which is man himself. So the killing of the youth in the vision signifies bringing under proper control unbridled human passions and lessening their vehemence and intensity. Thus the killing of the young man by the holy man of God so that he should not lead his parents to rebellion and disbelief, as seen in his vision by Moses, signifies that man has been gifted with great natural powers to perform the highest deeds of virtue and that in order to bring these powers into play, the 1895