Chapter 18, Verse 80

Commentary:

With this verse begins an explanation of the foregoing incidents as given by the holy man of Moses’ vision.

The words, 'poor people' here represent the meek of heart whom material prosperity and abundance of wealth do not prevent from taking care of and sympathizing with the needy and the destitute and from associating with them. The expression 'a king' denotes love of the world and attachment for material things. The verse thus means to say that those proud and conceited sons of darkness who disdain to spend their money on philanthropic purposes are wholly lost in the love of this world and fall easy victims to Satan. This is why the Holy Prophet sought to make a hole in the boat of his people—he laid down such laws as should render their love of this world pierced with the love of the next world so that they should spend their money in the service of the oppressed and the down-trodden and instead of tyrannizing over them they should serve them and sympathize with them.

It is worthy of note that whereas in the Holy Prophet’s Vision the love of the world took the form of an old woman, in Moses’ vision it was represented by a cruel king. This signified that the love of the world and its pleasures would exercise much less influence over the followers of the Holy Prophet than over those of Moses.

The words, "poor people," here may represent "the Muslims." Making a hole in the boat meant that Islam would exhort Muslims to spend their money in the cause of Allah, by way of Zakat and charity. This would appear to be a source of economic weakness rather than of strength and true prosperity, which in fact it would not be. The tyrant king of the Isra’ were the Byzantine and Iranian Empires which would have swallowed up Arabia had it not seemed to them a poor and barren land, not worth the trouble of conquering. It was thus preserved intact for the Holy Prophet.