65 Preface فَوَجَدا عَبدًا مِن عِبادِنا آتَيناهُ رَحمَةً مِن عِندِنا وَعَلَّمناهُ مِن لَدُنّا عِلمًاYusuf AliSo they found one1 of Our servants, on whom We had bestowed Mercy from Ourselves and whom We had taught knowledge from Our own2 Presence.One of Our servants: his name is not mentioned in the Qur-ān, but Tradition gives it as Khidr. Round him have gathered a number of picturesque folk tales, with which we are not here concerned. Khidr means “Green”: his knowledge is fresh and green, and drawn out of the living sources of life for it is drawn from God’s own Presence. He is a mysterious being, who had to be sought out. He has the secrets of the paradoxes of Life, which ordinary people do not understand, or understand in a wrong sense, as we shall see further on. The nearest equivalent figure in the literature of the People of the Book is Melchizedek or Melchisedek (the Greek form in the New Testament). In Gen. 14:18-20, he appears as king of Salem, priest of the Most High God: he blesses Abraham, and Abraham gives him tithes. St. Paul allegorises him in his Epistle to the Hebrews (5:6-10; 7:1-10): “he was without father, without mother, without descent, having neither beginning of days nor end of life”. That is to say, he appeared mysteriously: neither his parentage nor his pedigree is known, and he seems to live for all time. These qualities are also attributed to Khidr in popular Muslim tradition. (R).Khidr had two special gifts from God: (1) Mercy from His own Presence, and (2) Knowledge from His own Presence. The first freed him from the ordinary incidents of daily human life, and the second entitled him to interpret the inner meaning and mystery of events, as we shall see further on. Much could be and has been written about this from a mystic point of view.