Sūrat al-Kahf · Āyāt 83–110

What the passage says

The people put a question to the Prophet about Dhū al-Qarnayn, and he is told to relate an account of him (v.83). God had given him real power in the land and "the means to all things" — every resource by which a goal is reached (v.84) — and so he set out, following one such means (v.85).

He travelled west until he reached the place where the sun seems to set, finding it sink into a dark, muddy spring, and there he came upon a people. God put a choice to him: punish them, or treat them well (v.86). He answers with a rule of justice — the wrongdoer he will punish, and beyond that the man is returned to his Lord for a still graver punishment (v.87) — while the one who believes and does right earns the best reward and gentle, easy treatment under his command (v.88).

Then he followed another course (v.89) until he reached the place where the sun rises, over a people God had given no shelter from it (v.90) — and so it was, with God encompassing in His knowledge all that this ruler had at his disposal (v.91).

He set out a third time (v.92) until he came between two mountain-barriers, among a people who could barely understand speech (v.93). They complained that Gog and Magog were spreading ruin in the land, and offered him tribute to build a wall between them (v.94). He replied that what God had given him was better than their payment; let them help him with manpower instead, and he would raise a rampart (v.95). He called for blocks of iron, levelled the gap between the two cliff-sides, had them blow the fire until the iron glowed, then poured molten copper over it (v.96), so that Gog and Magog could neither climb it nor breach it (v.97). He called it "a mercy from my Lord," adding that when God's promise comes He will level it flat, for His promise is true (v.98).

From here the sūra turns to the end of all things. On that Day people will be left to surge against one another, the Trumpet will be blown, and all will be gathered (v.99); Hell will be brought into plain view before the faithless (v.100) — those whose eyes had been under a veil from God's remembrance and who could not bear to hear the truth (v.101).

The faithless are then asked whether they really imagined they could take God's own servants as protectors instead of Him — Hell is made ready to receive them (v.102). The Prophet is told to name the greatest losers in their deeds (v.103): those whose striving in this life goes astray while they are sure they are doing fine work (v.104), who denied their Lord's signs and the meeting with Him, so their works collapse and carry no weight on the Day of Resurrection (v.105) — Hell being their requital for disbelieving and mocking God's signs and messengers (v.106). Against them stand the believers who do righteous deeds, for whom the Gardens of Firdaws are a lodging (v.107), to abide in forever, never wishing to leave (v.108).

The sūra closes on two notes. If the sea were ink for the words of the Lord, the sea would run dry before those words were spent, even with another sea added to it (v.109). And the Prophet is told to say he is only a human being like the rest, to whom it is revealed that their God is One God — so whoever hopes to meet his Lord should do righteous work and associate no one in the worship of his Lord (v.110).

Convergence — where the six agree

• On the journeys, all six read a single arc: a God-given ruler who reaches the limits of the inhabited west and east and then a mountain pass, governing with justice and ending Gog and Magog's raids with an iron-and-copper wall. Ṭabarsī, Ṭūsī, al-Mīzān, and the Enlightening Commentary describe the wall the same way — iron blocks as the structure, molten copper sealing the gaps into one solid mass that could be neither scaled nor pierced.
• On "the sun setting in a muddy spring," Ṭabarsī, Ṭūsī, al-Mīzān, and the Enlightening Commentary all insist he only found it as though setting there, at the western edge of the inhabited land — the sun does not leave the sky, just as a person at the shore sees it sink into the sea.
• All identify Gog and Magog as real, corrupting nations raiding from beyond the mountains; Ṭabarsī and Ṭūsī trace them to the line of Japheth (whence the Turks), and the wall's eventual levelling is tied to the approach of the Hour.
• On the close, the sources converge tightly: Ṭabarsī, Ṭūsī, and al-Mīzān gloss "the words of my Lord" as God's decrees and judgements beyond all counting, and all read the final verse as a demand for sincere worship free of showing-off — several noting the report that "had only the end of Sūrat al-Kahf been revealed, it would have sufficed."
• The people of the rising-sun are read by Ṭabarsī, al-Qummī, al-Mīzān, and the Enlightening Commentary as a primitive folk with no shelter — citing Imam al-Bāqir (and al-Ṣādiq) that they had not yet learned to build houses or make clothing.

Divergence — where they differ

• Who was Dhū al-Qarnayn? This is the one large split. The classical options appear across Ṭabarsī, Ṭūsī, and the Enlightening Commentary — a prophet, a just king, or Alexander the Greek who built Alexandria — while al-Mīzān (and the Enlightening Commentary) lean toward identifying him with Cyrus. Set against all of these, al-Qummī and al-Baḥrānī foreground the distinctively Imāmī report from ʿAlī (and from Imams al-Bāqir and al-Ṣādiq) that he was neither prophet nor king but "a servant who loved God and God loved him," struck on each side of his head — "and among you is his like."
• Did God's command imply prophethood? Ṭabarsī notes that "We said to him" is taken by some as proof he was a prophet, while others (al-Kalbī) call it inspiration; al-Mīzān argues outright that God's "saying" is broader than prophetic revelation and that the address likely came through a prophet at his side.
• Who are "the greatest losers"? Ṭabarsī and Ṭūsī report ʿAlī applying it to the People of the Book and the Khārijites of Nahrawān; al-Mīzān treats those glosses as application and holds the primary reference to be the idolaters; al-Qummī widens it to Christians, monks, and innovators.
• The Imāmī taʾwīl runs deepest in al-Qummī and al-Baḥrānī, which uniquely carry the Water of Life and al-Khiḍr's immortality (serving the awaited Qāʾim), the two clouds stored for ʿAlī, the long al-Aṣbagh narration, and the readings of "My signs" as the legatees and of "associate none" as the wilāya of the House of Muḥammad. The Enlightening Commentary adds only a single such note — Imam al-Riḍā's reading of "My remembrance" (v.101) as ʿAlī.

Each scholar's full text is in the source panels below.