Misgiving about employment of means by the Prophet David, and answer to that misgiving
David ‘s story, to the extent mentioned en the Holy Quran, goes thus: “ Qemember Our Servant, David, when he was in the altar and there came all of sudden from the top of it two groups of people who were antagonists.” Apparently, they must have been more than two persons, although one verse of the Holy Quran, implies that there was one person:
“ Surely this is my brother, he has ninety – nine ewes and I have a single ewe.” The Holy Quran ( 38: 23)
In other interpretation however, the number of enemies in more than one, probably more than ten.
David was God’s prophet as well as a king and ruler for his tribe. The two persons mentioned above came to David. One oh them, who represented his people, said that the other one, whe was his brother, had ninety- nine ewes whereas he himself had only one, and that his brother wanted to take away that single ewe too. He then asked David for justice.
The Holy Quran mentions the complains but does not say whether the other person defended himself or not, it only quotes David as saying:
“ Surely hw has been unjust to you in demanding your ewe (to add ) to his own ewes, and surely many a partner act wrongfully towards another save those who believe and do good, and very few are they Dawood was that we had tried him, so he sought the protection of his Lord, and he fell down bowing to us in repentance and sought forgiveness. Therefore We forgave him, and most surely he had a nearness to us and excellent resort.” The Holy Quran ( 38: 24)
Here, we are faced with two questions:
1. Who were those who came to David ? Were they human beings and is this a true story?
2. Or, were they angles sent by God to try David? In this case, the story must have been a fabricated one, there being no true ewes or brothers who had wronged each other. They must have come to try David and upon noticing this he asked for forgiveness.
According to the narration of our Sunni brethren, David, the Prophet, had several wives. He was praying in his altar when Satan, first in disguise of a beautiful bird ( pigeon) appeared at the upon window at the altar. The bird was so beautiful that David stopped his prayer to each it. The bird glew a little further, David, tried again and the berd flew and settled on the roof. David, went op the roof in his attempt to catvh the bird. Right then, the wife of one of the soldiers, named Uria’, was bathing ( and David saw her naked). She was very beautiful and David fell in love with her. Then he asked who she was and he learned that her husband- a soldier- was then at the battlefield. David wrote a letter to his commander – in chief and ordered him to send the husband to the foremost war front, where he would surely be killed. The commander did so and the soldier was killed. The woman became a widow. after her Iddah was over, David married her. The Angels made him recall that scene to make him realize that he was also like the brother who had ninety-nine ewes but still asked for the single ewe his other brother had. Thereby David recognized he had committed sin and repented and his repentance was accepted by God.
The true story Defined by Imam Reza
According to Uyun akhbar Al Reda, Imam Reza (A.S) had a sessions of religious discussions with representatives of different nationalities and religions: the Jews, the Christians, the Zoroastrians, and the Sabaists, and also representatives of different Muslim sects including the Sunnite scholars in the presence of Ma’mum. Imam Reza asked one of David mentioned briefly in the Quran, The Sunnite scholar mentioned the same story as related above Imam Reza (A.S) said:
Glory be to Allah! How do you say such a thing about God’s prophet? What kind of a prophet is he to break his prayer on seeing beautiful bird and get so attacted as to follow it to the roof? Wasn’t there any body to catch the pigeon for him? And then, what of a prophet is he to forget the bird on seeing the beautiful woman and fall in love with her and then ask about her? When he learns that her husband is a good soldier making sacrifices at the battlefield, how could he play a trick in having that soldier killed so that he may marry the woman he likes? These are debauchery and villainy ( breaking prayer to love a married woman). What kind of a prophet is he to do all these?
“conceit” as an error of The Prophet David
They asked the Imam about the true story and he answered:
“ These things are not in the Holy Quran. The story is that once David, the Prophet, who was famous for his wisdom and his judgements, became slightly self-conceited and said to himself: My judgements are the best! I make my judgements among people in a way that nobody can find the slightest flaw with them. As in the case of Yunus and Adam, this slightly
self- vonceit caused God to take His “favor” off David to prove his inability and haste in passing judgements without hearing the other party.
The Holy Prophet in his prayer said:
“ O, God, please do not leave me to myself even for a split second or a blink of the eve! Umme Salamah narrates how one night, on finding that the Prophet of God was not in his bed, she wondered where he was till she found him in a corner of the room. She heard him praying: “ O, God! please do not give evil access to me after redemption! O, God! please do not afflict me with such plight as would gladden my enemy. O, God! please do not leave me to myself even for a moment.
Umme Salamah says that at this point she started weeping. When the Holy Prophet was though with his prayer, he asked her why she was crying. Umme Salamah said: “ When you talk so humbly, what will be our position if not for God’s mercy on us!” The Holy Prophet answered: “Yes, of course, your remark is correct. God left my brother Yunus to himself of moment and you know what happened to him.” The slightest self- conceiet in God’s prophets will bring about an end to God’s favors on them. Even the notion is alike and the fall is alike.
Imam Reza(A.S) said:
“ David felt there was no better judge him in the whole world. This self conceit afflicted him and God put him to trial with the result that David lost His favors."
He forgot that when somebody comes with a complaint, the judge should not utter a word in appreciation or in supposition. But we see that when some one came to David claiming that his brother, rich as he was and owning ninety – nine ewes, had asked for the single ewe he owned, David(A.S) gave way to human sentiments. Without even hearing the other party’s words in defense and without any deliberation, he said: “ If it is as you say, he has wronged you.” Then, all of a sudden he remembered that the correct way of passing judgement was to hear both parties and then arrive at a verdict. He realized that the reason for this mis judgement was his self- conceit, which was responsible for this severe blow. Imam Reza(A.S) then added: “ The story is not the same as you relate. There is nothing of the beautiful pigeon which flew or the charming womamn in the Quran.
Now we should see how this story distorted by Jews was copied and reproduced in Muslims’ books! All I can is: May God save us from the Jews and what they did ( and are doing ) to the world!
One of the thing that the Holy Quran attributes to them, is the distortion and alteration of facts by them even to this day. They are an intelligent, but cunning race, who control important economic and cultural channels in the world. A compilation of their activites in distorting information, history, geography and news, would expose the crimes they have committed. Right now, they control the world press, a very important channel of propagation. They actually control mass media in these countries where they can lay their hand upon. They then try to brainwash people. this is not what they are doing today only, they have been doing it from the very beginning. The Holy Quran states:
“ Do you then hope that they would trust in you, and a party from among them indeed listened to the word of Allah, then altered it after having understood it, and they are aware of it.” The Holy Quran ( 2: 75)
O, Muslims! what do you expect from these Jews? Don’t you know them ? They are the ones who even when Moses was with and heard God’s words, would still change his words as they wished. And this did not do out of ignorance, but quite consciously. They have the same spirit now and keep on committing such crimes. They have been distorting fasts for thousands of years considering it a basic duty to do so. They appear in different corners of the world, disguised appropriately and propagate their ideas through each nation’s culture and language. For example, to cause disputes between Sunnites and Shiites, they pick up an ardent Sunnite who adamantly against Shi’ism. They then cunningly alter the words of one party to bring them in contradiction with those of the other. They have filled their Old Testament with lies. For example, they fabricate false stories about past nations. The Holy Quran has exposed their deviated and fabricated stories.
The forged story of Amaliqa by Jewish people
To refute the Holy Quran and support their fabrication in the Old Testament, they have invented a series of traditions about the Holy Prophet, and his Household, i.e. the Holy Imams, so as confuse one and all with respect to their authenticity.
Concerning the Amaliqa, for example, who had once occupies the present day Jerusalem, Moses asked the Jews to leave and stand by their senses to honor and clammer for their rights. But they said:
“ O Moses! surely there is a strong race in it, and we on no account enter it until they go out from it, so if they go out from it, then surely we enter. Two men of those who feared, upon both of whom Allah had bestowed a favour, said: Enter upon them by the gate, for when you have entered it you shall be victorious, and on Allah should you rely if you are believers. They said: “O Moses! never can we enter while they remain therein. Go thou and thy God and fight, for here we will sit down.” The Holy Quran ,( 5:22-23-24)
They ( the Jews) were lazy and greedy and expected much without doing anything and would not stand to fight inspite of encouragement from Moses.
In the Battle of Badr, Miqdad told the Holy Prophet: “O Prophet of God! we are not like Jews to say, “Go thou and thy Allah and fight, and when thou succeed we will join three. “We follow your orders, even if you ask to throw ourselves in the sea, we shall do it. “
The Jews, in their attempt at undermining the Holy Quran’s criticism of them and to further confuse the Muslims, invented stories about the Amaliqa, claiming that they were not normal human being living in Jerusalem, but descendants of woman named Anaq. Anaq was a woman who, when sitting, occupied an area of ten by ten acres ( 1440 square yards), She had a son named Aud, who was so huge that Moses, being 40 cubits in height and having a stick of 40 cubits and being able to jump up to 40 cubits, managed only to strike him on his ankle!
Then the story goes on to say that a group of these Amaliqa had come to the deserts of Jersualem. Moses (A.S) sent some people to see who they were and what they did They reported that they ( the Amaliqa) were men, each one of whom was many kilometers in height. They caught fish by just sinking their hands in the sea and roasted the fish by holding them in front of the sun! On member of that tribe looked them in tront of the sun! On member of that tribe looked down at his feet and saw tiny creatures who moved.
They were Moses’s people. He caught a few of them and put them in his sleeves, then he went to the king and showing this catch, he said: “ Look! These are the ones who have came to recapture this land!”
If such people really did live in Jersalem, Moses would have no right to order his people to recapture the land! The Jews invented such stories connivngly to refute the true story in the Quran in criticism of the cowardly Jews. These fabricated stories were then fed to the Jews to Sunni Muslims as well.
Concerning David’s story, where we hear of a bird and of David’s love for U ria’s wife and U ria’s death, etc, these have all been fabricated by the children of Israel and then fed to the Muslims. Here we realize the importance of the Imams( A.S) The eightImam exposes their ( the Jews) lies and slanders, when he says that the story of David was not the untrue in the Quran and what comes in the Holy Quran is not fictious but real. The people who came to David didn’t want to a waken his sense of judgement, but what happened awakened him. If they say that people were angels, them one must ask how did the angels create a scene to a waken David ( A.S)? Their objective, of course, was asacred one, but the whole story is concocted. Here I should mentiom what Allameh Tabatabi states in his Tafsir Almizan. He writes that first of all, we are not sure whether these people were angels or not, Even if we suppose they were angels in disguise, it would be different from introducing fiction into a real existing would. The fact that it is our duty to tell truth and not lie and indicate that “this matter is true” and “ that one is wrong”, has to do with this material world. If in this material world, two persons came and lied to David, ten it would mean that they had used profane means to reach a sacred goal. But parable is a different thing, where a fact is presented in different guise, as in the case of true dreams. In true dreams. although there is similitude, there is no room for profane means.
The Holy Prophet, for example, dreamt of group of monkeys going up and down the pulpit in his mosque, while the Muslims audience facing the pulpit, gradually retreated from it, Then he woke up, sad a. 04 nd unhappy and regarded it as a sign of blow that would strike the world of Islam. The Honest Gabriel descended and interpreted this dream for the Holy Prophet:
“ …and we did not make the vision which showed you but a trial for men and the curdse tree in the Quran as well, and We cause them to fear, but it only adds to their great transgression.” The Holy Quran, ( 17:60)
O Prophet! After you, the O mayyads will rule your people. They will ascend your pulpit, talk of Islam, apparently comply with Islam, but in reality will drive people away from Islam. This is dream through which Allah revealed something to the Holy Prophet. If we say dreams are only true if they are actually realized in the same material from as seen in the dream, then we should consider the Prophet’s dream as being untrue, because the O mayyads did not ascend the pulpit as real monkeys. This dream, however, was a true one because it represented reality in different guise. The monkeys were allegorically O mayyads and the observed only in appearance, but its content and spirit would vanish. When angels appear in disguise to Prophet, they are not false entities but real angels. Truth and untruth in angels’ parables for a prophet would coincide with a real event, and in David’s case it did coincide with reality, therefore, on profane means have been exploited here.
Sources :
noble character of the Holy prophet of islam- pages: 91to103