Surah Al-Kahf 18:74
سُورَةُ الكَهۡفِ · Meccan · Verse 74 of 110
فَٱنطَلَقَا حَتَّىٰٓ إِذَا لَقِيَا غُلَٰمًۭا فَقَتَلَهُۥ قَالَ أَقَتَلْتَ نَفْسًۭا زَكِيَّةًۢ بِغَيْرِ نَفْسٍۢ لَّقَدْ جِئْتَ شَيْـًۭٔا نُّكْرًۭا
Translation
And so they travelled on. Then, when they met a young boy and the man killed him, Moses said, ‘How could you kill an innocent person? He has not killed anyone! What a terrible thing to do!’
English translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem.
Meaning and reflection
'So they set out, until when they met a boy, and he killed him. Musa said: Have you killed a pure soul who had killed no one? You have certainly done a terrible thing.' al-Saadi and Ibn Kathir note the second, far harder test, the killing of an apparently innocent child, an act so shocking that Musa's protest ('nukra', utterly abhorrent) is even stronger. Ask yourself: this is the hardest kind of decree to witness, the death of the young and seemingly innocent, the event that most violently offends every moral instinct I have. Musa's outcry is the outcry of every grieving, bewildered heart before such a loss: how can this possibly be right? The story does not dismiss that anguish; it takes the most morally unbearable event and promises that even here there is a hidden wisdom Musa cannot yet see. When life delivers the blow that seems most impossible to reconcile with a merciful God, can I hold, even barely, that the wisdom is there though hidden, as it was here?
Grounded in classical tafsir: al-Saadi, Ibn Kathir, Ibn Ashur.
Topics that discuss this verse
Surah Al-Kahf 18:74 is discussed in 5 study guides on Maani. Each guide gathers the key verses, Arabic words and lessons of one Quranic topic.
Reflect on this verse
Open Surah Al-Kahf 18:74 in Maani to reflect on it through the Five Lenses: its wording, its context, what it means for you, its connections across the Quran and its lessons, grounded in classical tafsir.