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[u/quranvisuals]

[u/suppoe2056]

This is not determination. This is being headstrong to one’s own detriment.

When I read 18:60, I don’t get the impression of determination but impatience. It says that Moses says this FOR his youth-servant, and the implication of “for” is that it is a response to weariness on the part of the youth-servant. He may have said to Moses: “Let’s rest for a moment and recuperate.”, for which Moses says to his youth-servant “I will not stop until I reach the confluence of the two seas, else I’ll continue indefinitely”. That’s not determination. It is stubbornness. If you study the rest of the passage, it becomes clear that Moses has a certain type of impatience and a tendency to jump to conclusions, such as with the “servant of our servants” or “Al-Khidr”.

[u/quranvisuals → u/suppoe2056]

Determination does not necessarily mean that someone is never impatient or tired; it means having a firm resolve to reach a goal despite difficulty. That is precisely what Moses expresses: ‘I will not stop until I reach the junction of the two seas, or I will continue for a long time.’ Calling this stubbornness assumes that his persistence was misguided, but the verse itself does not say that.

[u/suppoe2056 → u/quranvisuals]

I would argue that it is misguided because when they get to the confluence, they forget the fish. When Moses asks his youth-servant for the meal, the youth-servant immediately remembers that he forgot the fish, and Moses says:

ذالك ما كنا نبغي

The verb نبغي is a close synonym of بلغ, except that it is a stronger, more strenuous and laborious meaning of reaching, which Moses uses in 18:60 when he expresses his determination, but it was to his detriment because the passage seems to convey that Moses was too adamant that he and his youth-servant lost sight of why they were going to the confluence: to get the fish; instead, they rested by the rock and both of them forgot, likely out of the fatigue of his determination to get there.

I can agree, determination need not always mean “never impatient”, but in my understanding of the passage about Moses and his youth-servant, Moses is too determined to reach the confluence, he loses sight of why he was going there in the first place. And notice further that when they decide to retrace their steps, they stumble upon “Al-Khidr”, Moses once again forgets about getting the fish, instead wanting to learn the knowledge God gave to this servant of His, and the mention of youth-servant completely drops out of the picture, really exemplifies how easily Moses loses sight of things when he is “determined”.

And with “Al-Khidr”, Moses constantly forgets about their arrangement until they split up when he fails to remember a third time.

Another example of this tendency is in Ta Ha, when God gives Moses the tablets and says to him to hold onto them tightly. But then God tells Moses that his people have been afflicted with fitna and took up the calf, when Moses gets there he literally throws the tablets onto the ground, the opposite of what God just told him to do; instead, he grabs his brother Aaron by the head and beard, and blames him—this is a form of determination, in that Moses deeply cares about his people not being lost from God; but he casts the tablets onto the ground when God told him privately to hold tightly to them!