79 Preface أَمَّا السَّفينَةُ فَكانَت لِمَساكينَ يَعمَلونَ فِي البَحرِ فَأَرَدتُ أَن أَعيبَها وَكانَ وَراءَهُم مَلِكٌ يَأخُذُ كُلَّ سَفينَةٍ غَصبًاYusuf Ali“As for the boat, it belonged to certain men in dire want: they plied on the water: I but wished to render it unserviceable, for there was after them a certain king who seized on every boat by force.1They went on the boat, which was plying for hire. Its owners were not even ordinary men who plied for trade. They had been reduced to great poverty, perhaps from affluent circumstances, and deserved great commiseration, the more so as they preferred an honest calling to begging for chanty. They did not know, but Khidr did, that the boat, perhaps a new one, had been marked down to be commandeered by an unjust king who seized on every boat he could get-it may have been, for warlike purposes. If this boat had been taken away from these selfrespecting men, they would have been reduced to beggary, with no resources left them. By a simple act of making it unseaworthy, the boat was saved from seizure. The owners could repair it as soon as the danger was past. Khidr probably paid liberally in fares, and what seemed an unaccountably cruel act was the greatest act of kindness he could do in the circumstances.