﴿ فَٱنطَلَقَا حَتَّىٰٓ إِذَآ أَتَيَآ أَهْلَ قَرْيَةٍ ٱسْتَطْعَمَآ أَهْلَهَا فَأَبَوْا۟ أَن يُضَيِّفُوهُمَا فَوَجَدَا فِيهَا جِدَارًۭا يُرِيدُ أَن يَنقَضَّ فَأَقَامَهُۥ ۖ قَالَ لَوْ شِئْتَ لَتَّخَذْتَ عَلَيْهِ أَجْرًۭا ﴾

“And so the two went on, till, when they came upon some village people, they asked them for food; but those [people] refused them all hospitality. And they saw in that (village] a wall which was on the point of tumbling down, and [the sage] rebuilt it [whereupon Moses] said: "Hadst thou so wished, surely thou couldst [at least] have obtained some payment for it?"”

The Prophet Moses and Khidr, God’s favoured servants, who were very near to Him, wanted the local people of a place they had reached to treat them as guests and feed them. But they refused to do so. This shows that it is not enough for one simply to be in oneself righteous and truthful and to be in God’s favour, in order to have a place in others’ esteem. Had the people of that place recognized them, they would have certainly made them their guests and obtained their blessings. But due to their ordinary outward appearance, they ignored them. They could not see them in the light of their inner reality. In spite of this inhospitable treatment, Khidr repaired a crumbling wall belonging to the local people. The behaviour of God’s true and pious subjects with others is not retaliatory, but is always in accordance with the norms of justice and righteousness.