American Journal of Islam and Society Vol 42 No 3-4.indb 148 Prophet al-Khiḍr: Between the Qur’anic Text and Islamic Contexts L O N D O N : L E X I N G T O N B O O K S , 2 0 2 2 . 1 5 6 P A G E S . I R F A N A . O M A R Khiḍr is not widely known or extensively theorized, even though he fre- quently appears in Muslim literature and has been embraced by several Muslim civilizations. Building on the extensive research and analysis of the enigmatic prophet Khiḍr by Patrick Franke and Talat Halman, Irfan A. Omar’s Prophet al-Khiḍr: Between the Qur’anic Text and Islamic Contexts contributes to correcting this oversight. By examining Khiḍr through a “wider frame of understanding”, Omar hopes to demonstrate the important intersectional connections between the Khiḍr narrative and other savior-sage type stories. This covers both symbolic and leg- endary viewpoints in addition to textual and literary representations (22) and to “examine Khiḍr’s diverse attributes as a celestial messenger entrusted with aiding the pious and truth-seekers, irrespective of time or location, status, or faith’’ (27). Omar’s efforts have given us a rich, widely portrayed, painstakingly detailed, composite, and colorful picture of the Khiḍr tale throughout Islamic history and genres. The enigmatic character Khiḍr is referenced in Sūrat al-Kahf while discussing Moses’s interaction with an anonymous spiritual entity (18: BOOK rEVIEWS  149 60–82). The sole reference to him in the Qur’an is “a servant of God,” and early scholars of the Qur’an, known as mufassirūn, believed that he was Khiḍr, also known as “The Green One.” The goal of the mufassirūn was to determine how this God-servant, who seemed in the narrative to receive information straight from God, should be interpreted in the context of Islamic prophetology, especially in relation to Moses. In addition to being the topic of early tafsīr, Khiḍr also became the focus of Sufi storytelling, debate, and imagination. From the beginning, Khiḍr came to represent intuition, equanimity, helping the poor, safeguarding travelers, greenery in the natural world, water, and the divine raḥmah. Scholars, Sufis, poets, and laypeople have all assigned their own variants onto these themes in their interpretations of his aims, powers, and importance, albeit these have varied depending on the occasion. In enigmatic visits to Muslims, he is said to have brought protection and heavenly insights to everyone from Ibn al-ʿArabī to a fisherman in Punjab. By examining the Khiḍr narrative across various Islamic genres and settings, Omar presents a synopsis of the legacy of the Qur’anic Khiḍr, highlighting the growing roles he played as his story merged with other legends and showcasing a range of symbolic representations derived from important attributes Khiḍr is purported to have. In order to show and ana- lyze Khiḍr’s solid foundation in the textual sources of Islam—the Qur’an, ḥadīth, the qiṣaṣ al-anbiyā’, and Sufi literature—Omar assembles a wide variety of sources (p. 2). The Qur’anic and ḥadīth sources that “inspired the story of Khiḍr to try to communicate an allegorical story about Moses” are examined in the book’s opening chapter (p. 15). According to the Qur’anic narrative, Moses searches for Khiḍr and discovers him at “the meeting place of the two oceans.” The acts of Khiḍr in the narrative seem to be at odds with the “ethical norms subscribed to by Moses” (p. 15). According to Omar, Khiḍr symbolizes the “rupture that exists between esoteric and exo- teric knowledge” and divine assistance for the weak via his deeds (p. 16). The interaction between Moses and Joshua reveals that divine knowledge “may be received in the form of ‘law’ or revelation or as mystical, intuitive knowledge” and truth that extends beyond what can be logically discerned. It is said of Khiḍr that he is green or wears a white coat; ḥadīth describe him sitting over a wasteland that turns green and verdant. According to 150  AMErICAN JOUrNAL OF ISLAM ANd SOCIEt Y 42:3-4 Omar, Khiḍr seems to have satisfied the most fundamental necessity for understanding the dynamic relationship between the divine and human realms in the cultural dimension that separates orthodox and Sufi thinkers (19). The book’s second chapter addresses the worries of early Qur’anic exegetical scholars and later Sufi thinkers on Khiḍr’s status as a prophet and, subsequently, an initiating shaykh in absentia. Omar goes into further detail on how he came to be identified as both a prophet and a “friend of God” (walī), building on the symbolic meaning of Khiḍr being associated with fertility, regeneration, fish, water, and the safety of travelers. For mys- tics, Khiḍr comes to stand for immortality, which is further developed into a metaphorical “state of being” that the mystically oriented faithful pursue. The significance of Khiḍr in Sufism is the subject of the third chapter of the book. Sufi emphasis on the master-disciple connection, the initia- tion principle, maʿrifah, and “divine insight,” which he is said to possess, and reveal when he appears to the pious, are all reflected in the Khiḍr narrative. In Sufi metaphysical cosmology, he is acknowledged as one of four spiritual poles and stands for the “initiatic principle,” which states that a Sufi shaykh is always present to their students/adepts regardless of time and place, even when they are not physically there. The Uwaysiyyah Sufi order from Central Asia even regards Khiḍr as its founder shaykh. He was always accessible and gave khirqah to some Sufis, exemplifying a “Khiḍrian trope’’ of the master-disciple bond (67). Chapter Four discusses the presence in Southeast Asia, South Asia, and the Middle East of popular religious traditions that incorporate Khiḍr legends, temples dedicated to Khiḍr, and devotional rituals (Omar does not reference Africa in this discussion). Here, Omar considers the story’s themes and potential ties to other legendary and pre-Islamic stories. A variety of localized holy sites, each with its own narratives of Khiḍr’s appearances, have been built by Khiḍr shrines, according to certain folk- loric and cultural expressions of the story. Examples of composite forms depicting him as non-Islamic figures like St. George are presented to us, and we discover that Khiḍr is the Muslim equivalent of local Hindu- oriented vernacular devotion for Muslims in India. According to Omar, Khiḍr may be seen as a Muslim means of connecting concepts and nar- ratives that are dispersed throughout time and geography. He turns into BOOK rEVIEWS  151 a representation of the centuries-long cooperative transnational, trans- cultural, and interreligious legacy (118). The last chapter of the book offers an engaging and poignant account of Muhammad Iqbal, an Indo-Pakistani poet of the 20th century, and his poetic exchanges with Khiḍr. Iqbal’s profound “philosophy of action” influenced how he saw Khiḍr, whom he saw as a representation of move- ment, action, and rebirth. This symbolism in Iqbal’s poetry, written in pre-partition colonial South Asia, eloquently portrayed his existential and theological idea of “self,” which asserted that human agency is the journey to learn, act, and seek nearness to God, but not unification with Him. Here, Khiḍr’s association with the oppressed, the traveler, and the seeker, as well as the story of Moses and Khiḍr in Sūrat al-Kahf, which mentions the meeting of two oceans of Shariʿah and structure on the one hand, and of maʿrifah and transcendence on the other, create a fer- tile ground for Iqbal’s poetic imagination and leadership as a religious intellectual during a critically difficult period for Muslims in South Asia. The Khiḍr story is a multifaceted and enduring religious and spiritual resource, and Omar’s Prophet al-Khiḍr is a highly valuable addition to the literature on Khiḍr. The book may appear somewhat brief, yet it is also evident that the Khiḍr narrative resonates powerfully with signifi- cant themes and issues regarding knowledge and how the supernatural makes it available to people. The book also demonstrates how the Khiḍr narrative endures as it presents countless ways to understand topics at the heart of the Islamic religion, from the sublime to the banal. Overall, readers will gain a deep understanding of the significance and power of the Khiḍr story in the Islamic tradition as well as a more comprehensive understanding of the key themes in Islam that the Khiḍr narrative and symbology—as well as the questions surrounding them—can shed light on from Omar’s readable and insightful study. Muhammad Asad Latif Research Fellow Islamia University Bahawalpur Bahawalpur, Pakistan doi: 10.35632/ajis.v42i3-4.3468