The Story of Mūsā and Khaḍir: An Evaluation of Its Alleged Jewish Origins

This article analyzes the views of orientalist scholars regarding the story of Mūsā-Khaḍir with a focus on the allegedly Jewish origin of the story. Narrated in some details in the Qur’an, the story of Mūsā-Khaḍir has been linked by those scholars to the epic tales of ancient civilizations, which have then been asserted to be the provenance of the Qur’anic story. Raised to that effect is the claim that there are similarities between the story of Rabbi Joshua ben Levi in Jewish tradition and that the Qur’anic version of the story is based on the Jewish tale. This study takes up this claim and investigates the degree of relation between the Mūsā-Khaḍir story in the Qur’an and the one in Jewish tradition. Also the Arabic original of the story of Rabbi Joshua ben Levi is appended to the article for readers of Arabic to follow the original text.