80وَأَمَّا الغُلامُ فَكانَ أَبَواهُ مُؤمِنَينِ فَخَشينا أَن يُرهِقَهُما طُغيانًا وَكُفرًاMuhammad Asad"And as for that young man, his parents were [true] believers - whereas we had every reason to fear1 that he would bring bitter grief upon them by [his] overweening wickedness and denial of all truth:Lit., "we feared - but it should be borne in mind that, beyond this primary meaning, the verb khashiya sometimes denotes "he had reason to fear" and, consequently, "he knew", i.e., that something bad would happen (Taj al-'Arus, with specific reference to the above verse): and so we may assume that the sage's expression of "fear" was synonymous with positive "knowledge" gained through outward evidence or through mystic insight (the latter being more probable, as indicated by his statement in the second paragraph of the next verse, "I did not do [any of] this of my own accord").