Ala-Maududi
(38:26) (We said to him): “O David, We have appointed you vicegerent on earth. Therefore, rule
among people with justice and do not follow (your) desire lest it should lead you astray from
Allah’s Path. Allah’s severe chastisement awaits those who stray away from Allah’s Path, for
they had forgotten the Day of Reckoning.[28]
28. This is the warning that Allah gave to the Prophet David (peace be upon him) on accepting his
repentance along with giving him the good news of exalting his rank. This by itself shows that
the error that he had committed contained an clement of the desires of the flesh; it also
pertained to the abuse of power and authority; and it was an act which was unworthy of a just
and fair-minded ruler.
We are confronted with three questions here:
(1) What was the error that the Prophet David committed?
(2) Why has Allah made only tacit allusions to it instead of mentioning it openly and directly?
(3) What is its relevance to the present context?
The people who have studied the Bible (the Holy Book of the Jews and Christians) are not unaware
that in this Book the Prophet David (peace be upon him) has been accused clearly of committing
adultery with the wife of Uriah the Hittite and then marrying her after having Uriah
intentionally slain in a battle. It has also been alleged that this same woman, who had
surrendered herself to the Prophet David (peace be upon him), while being another man’s wife,
was the mother of the Prophet Solomon (peace be upon him). This story is found with all its
details in chapters 11 and 12 of the Second Book of Samuel in the Old Testament. It had been
included in it centuries before the revelation of the Quran. Any Jew or Christian who read his
Holy Book anywhere in the world, or heard it read, was not only aware of this story but also
believed in it as true. It spread through them, and even in the present time no book is written
in the West on the history of the Israelites and the Hebrew religion, in which this charge
against the Prophet David (peace be upon him) is not repeated. This well known story also
contains the following:
And the Lord sent Nathan onto David. And he came unto him, and said unto him, There were two men
in one city; the one rich, and the other poor. The rich man had exceeding many flocks and herds:
But the poor man had nothing, save one little ewe lamb, which he had bought and nourished up:
and it grew up together with him, and with his children; it did eat of his own meat, and drank
of his own cup, and lay in his bosom, and was unto him as a daughter. And there came a traveler
unto the rich man, and he spared to take of his own flock and of his own herd, to dress for the
wayfaring man that was come unto him; but took the poor man’ lamb, and dressed it for the man
that was come to him. And David’s anger was greatly kindled against the man; and he said to
Nathan, As the Lord liveth, the man that hath done this thing shall surely die: And he shall
restore the lamb fourfold, because he did this thing, and because he had no pity. And Nathan
said to David, Thou art the man. Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, I anointed thee king over
Israel, and I delivered thee out of the hand of Saul; And I gave thee thy master’s house, and
thy master’s wives into thy bosom, and gave thee the house of Israel and of Judah; and if that
had been too little, I would moreover have given unto thee such and such things. Wherefore hast
thou despised the commandment of the Lord, to do evil in his sight? Thou hast killed Uriah the
Hittite with the sword, and hast taken his wife to be thy wife, and hast slain him with the
sword of the children of Ammon. (2 Samuel, chapter 12: 1-9).
When this story was so well known among the people there was no need that a detailed account of
it should have been given in the Quran, nor is it the way of Allah to mention such things openly
in His Holy Book. That is why only tacit allusions have been made to it here as well as pointed
out what the actual event was and what the people of the Book have turned it into. The actual
event as one clearly understands from the aforesaid statement of the Quran was:
The Prophet David (peace be upon him) had only expressed this desire before Uriah (or whatever be
the name of the man) that he should divorce his wife; as this desire had been expressed not by a
common man but by an illustrious king and a great Prophet before a member of the public, the man
was finding himself constrained to yield to it even in the absence of any compulsion. On this
occasion, before the man could act as the Prophet David had desired, two righteous men of the
nation suddenly made their appearance before David and presented before him this matter in the
form of an imaginary case. At first, the Prophet David thought it was a real case, and so gave
his decision after hearing it. But as soon as he uttered the words of the decision, his
conscience gave the warning that the parable precisely applied to the case between him and the
person, and that the act which he was describing as an injustice had issued forth from his own
person. As soon as he realized this, he fell down prostrate, repented and reversed his decision.
The question, as to how this event took the ugly shape as related in the Bible, also becomes
obvious after a little consideration. It appears that the Prophet David (peace be upon him) had
come to know of the unique qualities of the woman through some means and had started thinking
that she should be the queen of the country instead of being the wife of an ordinary officer.
Overwhelmed by the thought he expressed the desire before her husband that he should divorce
her. He did not see any harm in it because it was not looked upon as anything improper among the
Israelites. It was an ordinary thing among them that if a person happened to like the wife of
another, he would freely request him to give her up for him. Nobody minded such a request, and
often it so happened that friends would divorce their wives for each other’s sake of their own
accord, so that the other may marry her. However, when the Prophet David (peace be upon him)
expressed this desire, he did not realize that the expression of such a desire could be without
compulsion and coercion when expressed by a common man, but it could never be so when expressed
by a king. When his attention was drawn to this aspect of the matter through a parable, he gave
up his desire immediately, and the thing was forgotten. But afterwards when, without any desire
or planning on his part, the woman’s husband fell martyr on the battlefield, and he married her,
the evil genius of the Jews started concocting stories and this mischievous mentality became
even more acute after a section of the Israelites turned hostile to the Prophet Solomon. Please
see (Surah An-Naml, ayat 44) note 56.
Under these motives the story was invented that the Prophet David (peace be upon him), God
forbid, had seen Uriah’s wife washing herself from the roof of his palace. He had her called to
his house and committed adultery with her and she had conceived. Then he had sent Uriah on the
battle-front to fight the children of Ammon, and had commanded Joab, the army commander, to
appoint him in the forefront of the battle where he should be killed. And when he was killed, he
married his widow, and from the same woman the Prophet Solomon (peace be upon him) was born. The
wicked people described all these false accusations in their Holy Book, so that they should go
on reading it generation after generation and slandering the two most illustrious men of their
community, who were their greatest benefactors after the Prophet Moses (peace be upon him).
A section of the commentators of the Quran has almost entirely accepted these tales that have
reached them through the Israelites. They have dropped only that pan of these traditions in
which mention has been made of the accusation of adultery against the Prophet David and the
woman’s having conceived. The rest of the story as found in the traditions reproduced by them is
the same as it was well known among the Israelites. Another group of the commentators has
altogether denied that any such act was ever committed by the Prophet David (peace be upon him),
which bore any resemblance with the case of the ewes. Instead of this, they have put forward
such interpretations of this story as are wholly baseless, unauthentic and without relevance to
the context of the Quran itself. But among the Muslim commentators themselves there are some who
have accepted the truth and the facts of the story through the clear references made to it in
the Quran. Here are, for instance, some of their views:
Both Masruq and Saeed bin Jubair have related this saying of Abdullah bin Abbas: The only thing
that the Prophet David (peace be upon him) did was that he expressed his desire before the
woman’s husband that he should give up his wife for him. (lbn Jarir).
Allama Zamakhshari writes in his commentary Al- Kashshaf: The way Allah has narrated the story of
the Prophet David (peace be upon him) indicates that he had only expressed his desire before the
man that he should leave his wife for him.
Allama Abu Bakr al-Jassas has expressed the opinion that the woman was not the other man’s wedded
wife but was only his betrothed. The Prophet David (peace be upon him) had also asked for the
same woman’s hand in marriage. This earned him Allah’s displeasure, for he had asked for her
hand in spite of the fact that another man had already asked for her hand, and the Prophet David
(peace be upon him) already had several wives with him in his house. (Ahkamul-Quran). Some other
commentators also have expressed the same opinion, but this does not entirely conform to what
the Quran has said. The words of the suitor as related in the Quran are to the effect: I have
only one ewe; he says: Give this ewe also in my charge. The Prophet David (peace be upon him)
also said the same thing in his decision: This person has certainly wronged you in demanding
your ewe to be added to his ewes. This parable could apply to the case between the Prophet David
(peace be upon him) and Uriah only in case the woman was the latter’s wife. Had it been the cast
of asking for the woman’s hand when another man had already asked for her hand, the parable
would have been like this: I desired to have an ewe, and this man said: leave this also for me.
Qadi Abu Bakr Ibn al-Arabi has discussed this question in detail in his Ahkamal-Quran and
concluded: What actually happened was just that the Prophet David (peace be upon him) asked one
of his men to leave his wife for him and made this demand seriously. The Quran does not say that
the man gave up his wife on this demand and the Prophet David (peace be upon him) then married
her and the Prophet Solomon was born of her womb. What displeased Allah was that he asked the
woman’s husband to leave her for him. This act, even if otherwise lawful, was unworthy of the
office of Prophethood; that is why he earned Allah’s displeasure and was admonished.
This commentary fits in well with the context in which this story has been told. A little
consideration of the context shows that it has been related in the Quran on this occasion for
two objects. The first object is to exhort the Prophet (peace be upon him) to patience, and for
this purpose he has been addressed and told: Have patience on what these people say against you,
and remember Our servant David (peace be upon him). That is: You are being accused only of
sorcery and lying, but Our servant David (peace be upon him) was even accused of adultery and
having a person killed willfully, by the wicked people: therefore, bear up against what you may
have to hear from these people. The other object is to warn the disbelievers to the effect: You
are committing all sorts of excesses in the world with impunity, but the God in Whose Godhead
you are committing these misdeeds does not spare anyone from being called to account. Even if a
favorite and beloved servant of His happens to commit but a minor error, He calls him to strict
accountability. For this very object the Prophet (peace be upon him) has been asked: Tell them
the story of Our servant David (peace be upon him), who was a man of high character, but when he
happened to commit sin, We did not even spare him but condemned him severely.
In this regard, there is another misunderstanding which must also be removed. The suitor in his
parable said that his brother had 99 ewes and he had only one ewe, which he was demanding from
him. From this one gets the idea that perhaps the Prophet David (peace be upon him) had 99
wives, and by having another he wanted to make their number 100. But, in fact, it is not
necessary that every minor part of the parable should be literally applicable to the case
between the Prophet David (peace be upon him) and Uriah the Hittite. In common idiom the numbers
ten, twenty, fifty, etc. are mentioned to express plurality and not to indicate the exact number
of something. When a man tells another that he has told him something ten times over, he only
means to stress that he has been told that thing over and over again. The same is also true
here. By means of the parable the suitor wanted the Prophet David (peace be upon him) to realize
that he already had several wives with him, and even then he desired to have the only wife of
the other man. This same thing has been cited by the commentator Nisaburi from Hasan Basri: The
Prophet David (peace be upon him) did not have 99 wives: this is only a parable (For a detailed
and well-reasoned discussion of this story, see our book Tafhimat, vol. II, pp. 29.44).
