Khedr, Al

Khedr, Al is the name which figures in the Koran (chap. 18, Sale's edition, p. 244) as that of a person whom the Mohammedans assert the Lord pointed out to Moses as superior in wisdom to any other living person, Moses included. The story the Mohammedans tell is thus given by Sale: "Moses once preaching to the people, they admired his knowledge and eloquence so much that they asked him whether he knew any man in the world who was wiser than himself, to which he answered in the negative; whereupon God, in a revelation, having reprehended him for his vanity (though some pretend that Moses asked God the question of his own accord), acquainted him that his servant Al Khedr was more knowing than he; and, at Moses's request, told him that he might find that person at a certain rock where the two seas met, directing him to take a fish with him in a basket, and that where he missed the fish that was the place. Accordingly Moses set out, with his servant Joshua, in search of Al Khedr." See Sale's Koran, p. 244.