Translations of Qur'aanic Verses 38:21 to 39:24:
21. And
has the information of the litigants come to your knowledge when they climbed over
the walls of (King David’s) private chamber?
22. When
they confronted David, he shrank back in fear of them. They said, “Fear not! We
are two litigants. One of us has wronged the other. So judge between us with
justice, and deviate not from what is right, and show both of us the right path.”
23. “This
man here is my brother. He has ninety-nine ewes, whereas I have one ewe. And he
asks me to hand over to him even the one I have. And he prevailed over me in the
discourse we had.”
24. David
said (to the complainant), “He has certainly wronged you by demanding that your
ewe be added to his ewes! And indeed do many associates – except those who
believe in Allah and do righteous deeds – wrong one another; but how few are those
exceptions!” And David at once realized that We had tested him (by presenting to
him the case of the ewes)! And so he asked his Lord to forgive him, and bowed
down, and turned to Him in repentance.5
Study Note:
5. In all probability the two litigants were angels sent by Allah Ta’ala
to teach King David a lesson. Undoubtedly, the King had committed some unnamed
impropriety, unbecoming of a Prophet King of his high stature. A safe bet is to
assume that the King’s impropriety was of the nature of the impropriety
involved in the litigants’ case. But since Allah almighty has thought it fit
not to specifically name the King’s impropriety, we should better avoid echoing
what Chritian scriptures (Old Testament) unabashedly accuse the King of
committing an undoubtedly sinful act. The accusation has to be patently false
since Allah Almighty could not have chosen a man committing such a heinous
crime as His Prophet. The Christian scripture containing this accusation is not
purely divine as the Qur’aan is. It is of the nature of the man-influenced and
error-prone Ahaadeeth which too
contain some unpalatable and unsavoury things about our own Prophet Muhammad
(peace on him). What King David might have done could only be described as an
impropriety not amounting to sin. And as the next Verse below informs us Allah
forgave King David.
The above is an extract from yet-to-be-published Qur'aanic Studies Manzil VI.
No comments:
Post a Comment