Who was Khidr?
This mysterious character has significant value in Islam. Unlike all saints, prophets and leaders mentioned in the Quran - he is the only one that is seemingly exclusive to Muslims.
As in you'll find all other characters in the Quran to be also present in the Bible and the Torah and other Judeo-Christian beliefs and documents. Except his man.
the tldr about this man as observed in the Quran:
Moses declares he is the wisest most knowing human on Earth after one of his sermons. God declares that that's not true and to seek out a wise man by taking a fish and roaming the Earth until the fish escapes him. Moses takes a young student of his and sets out to find this man. The fish escapes and Moses finds the man at the "junction/meeting of the seas"
Moses begs the man to take him along and teach him from his wisdom. The man famously and repeatedly tells him "you will not endure my ways"
What follows are three distinct stories that happened with Khidr and Moses:
1- Khidr punctures a ship
2- Khidr kills an innocent child
3- Khidr mends a stone wall in a town where the town folk were inhospitable and vile to them.
Moses confronts the man every time about his seemingly evil/useless deeds; the man then explains that he punctured the ship so that it would be deemed unworthy by a famously corrupt king would have seized it otherwise
He killed the child because he would grow up to be mischievous and evil. And God would replace him to his parents with a good son in his place.
He mended the wall because it belonged to sickly father whom would soon die and leave orphans behind. and that the wall would collapse unearthing a treasure underneath when the orphans are older.
Have these stories been mentioned before in any Judeo-Christian or even Greek mythology? or is this truly the only character / story line that is a new addition and exclusive to Islam?
This story is what made me renounce Islam, barbaric af. Anybody has more info on this dude?
it should be mentioned that Khidr is now and has been for quite sometime the poster child of Islamic mysticism. he is believed by many muslims to be timeless and immortal. he is said to eat like us but doesn't need to.
"Immortality" is exclusive to him and to Elijah in Muslim tradition. his wisdom and mystical nature also lead to him being adopted and heavily revered by many fringe sects in islam such as Sufis.
>>1361056
He sounds a lot like Utnapishtim, sometimes called "the Sumerian Noah", who was the sole survivor of the antediluvian world who knew the ancient ways of worship and taught them to Gilgamesh, allowing him to re-found the "true" religion on his return to Uruk. Even the fish part is mirrored in the Sumerian, it's one of the methods of achieving immortality that Utnapishtim teaches Gilgamesh.
>>1361056
>>1361094
Similarities:
Utnapishtim is concerned with boats, is one of the only two mortals to achieve immortality, is the wisest man alive, the hero is directed to meet him by god, has a weird fish-related myth associated with him, and foretells that the hero will not endure his trials and so fail to achieve immortality. His story was also widely known in Mesopotamia, so Mohammed would have had opportunities to learn it.
>>1361131
>>1361123
>>1361094
This sounds very interesting indeed. I also read somewhere that Elijah himself had a similar story line where he did seemingly evil/useless acts that only he knew the real reason behind.
Could that mean that we are looking at a combination of two or more story lines to create the Khidr?
>>1361155
>Could that mean that we are looking at a combination of two or more story lines to create the Khidr?
This seems very likely. Mohammed was not a very imaginative or original thinker, his stories are invariably based on his confused and incomplete recollections of other stories found in the region.
>>1361166
Muslims today will continuously deny this saying that "Muhammad was illiterate" what would you say to that?
Lets say Muhammad was indeed illiterate, where would he learn and collect these stories from? It is a well documented fact that he made countless journeys to Palestine and Syria as a merchant, and that there were many Christians and Jews knocking about Mecca and the surrounding regions.
But what baffles me is, if it was a well known fact that he took these stories and simply repeated them in Arabic the locals would indeed catch on to that. Maybe they did at first but how is it that today there are 1.5 billion Muslims then?
And as a last question: do you know of any original or new stories that were introduced in the Quran that cannot be found anywhere else?
>>1361187
>"Muhammad was illiterate" what would you say to that?
Was he also deaf? Did he have a memory? Plenty of illiterate people have heard stories and are able to relate them more-or-less faithfully. Also, it seems extremely unlikely that he was illiterate given his background. I mean it's possible but he would be quite unusual for a well-to-do and urban Arab not to be literate by 600AD.
>>1361187
>But what baffles me is, if it was a well known fact that he took these stories and simply repeated them in Arabic the locals would indeed catch on to that. Maybe they did at first but how is it that today there are 1.5 billion Muslims then?
They did? Mohammed had many detractors during his life who accused him of doing just that, of course he contrived to have many of them murdered and 1,400 years of his cult of personality has erased most of the evidence. But even in the Koran itself, there is the example of the three questions asked of him by the Jews when he was still claiming to be a Jewish prophet, which he failed to answer in the most abject and embarrassing manner, which in turn lead to the Jews rejecting him as a false prophet and he in turn having them all massacred once he got into power.
>>1361210
if all the stories in the quran where are just rehashed versions of stories that were already circulating the area and that what Muhammad did was simply tell them again in Arabic - how is it that he managed to get such an immense cult following continuing even today? Im just trying to understand thats all
ive read somewhere about him being the central figure of some weird islamic occultism here in southeast asia
>>1361230
>how is it that he managed to get such an immense cult following continuing even today?
Well, there are always some idiots who will believe anything, just look at modern cult leaders like Jim Jones or David Koresh. Mohammed's cult spread much further because he didn't rely only on preaching, he also lead a gang of robbers and slavers who raided caravans, and eventually amassed enough wealth and power thru this theft to raise an army and begin outright conquest against his enemies. Islamisation came along much later, even into the 18th century large portions of the "Arab" world were non-muslim, and again look at the equivalent cultural dominance of Christianity in the west, achieved for the most part in much the same way as the Islamic domination of the Orient, a centuries long process interpreted with the occasional massacre of unbelievers.
>>1361248
Do you have any good documentaries or literature that examines Muhammad as simply a historical figure? Just the facts without the miracles and the other stuff..
>>1361261
Afaik, only one has ever been made, and it was widely condemned as "Islamophobic". You're not going to find a good documentary about him, because no documentary maker is going to risk death by investigating his life and deeds.
Trailer for the only movie I know about him:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNZeEa7uzNU
