We have mentioned in the past columns about the linear history that is being shared by Islam, Christianity, and Judaism and there are many stories in the Bible that are in fact validated in the Quran. One of such is the story of David and Goliath where Prophet David in his youth as a soldier fighting for King Saul of the Kingdom of Israel was chosen to fight the giant Goliath of the Philistines in a one on one battle 3000 years ago.
This story has since been quoted as a story of the triumph of the weak against the strong. A fairy tale of some sort. But Canadian Journalist Malcolm Gladwell believes otherwise. In his TED-ED talk, Gladwell delivered the unheard story of David and Goliath. This analysis of Malcolm Gladwell is much appreciated because this gives us a fresh glimpse of how Allah helps his servants.
Hearing the romanticized version of this story, you would think that Allah bestows strength to His chosen slaves and grants them victory like we don’t have to do anything or prepare for anything. Or that victory comes to the weak even if the battle is between sticks and rifles so to speak. This romanticized version of the David and Goliath story gives humans some sort of false hope that Allah would simply come to the rescue of any distressed believer.
In Islam, there is a doctrine called Tawakkul or reliance upon Allah. This doctrine of reliance exists in Christian doctrine as well. If we take the romanticized version of the David and Goliath story, we’d go to any battle almost unarmed without a second thought as we believed how David killed Goliath with mere stones. This mystic interpretation of reliance upon Allah is also exhibited by Muslims who wrongly understood this concept. It is just like when we expect for wonders to happen even without doing anything. Just like how the Christians believe that they do not have to do anything but accept Christ as their personal savior and everything’s gonna be alright.
But this is how we should view it in order for us to understand how Allah makes wonders happen and how the impossible become possible.
To begin, David being with the army of King Saul meant that he is a soldier and not a mere shepherd as he always was. When Goliath showed up and started the challenge, nobody moved forward except David who even denied the armor that was being given to him by King Saul and wanted to fight Goliath instead with his sling and five stones that he picked up.
In the past, there are what they call the heavy infantry who are heavily armored strong soldiers and there is also the light infantry which you already know according to what the name suggests. Goliath was heavy infantry while David was light infantry. This is an asymmetric battle.
David insisted to Saul that he could fight Goliath with the sling that he already mastered using even during his shepherding days. According to experts, the qadhifah, as the Palestinians call this weapon is capable of hitting targets well beyond 200 meters away. Expert slingers are even so good they would hit a bird while it’s flying. So David really had some chance fighting this giant from afar.
But this is still an impossible thing as the sling could only be loaded with stones. But we have to mention that David did not use tiny pebbles. The stones in the Valley of Elah where the battle happened are what experts call the barium sulfate stones which have twice the density of normal stones. David used a fist-sized stone and just one of his five stones hitting Goliath in the face is enough to kill the giant as each stone at maximum velocity has the stopping power of a .45 caliber bullet.
We already know that Goliath is already this heavily encumbered giant wearing about 50kg of armor and should not be able to dodge the stone from an expert slinger. Nor could be move fast enough to even get near David who will only run to keep his distance and take full advantage of his weapon of choice. He would just stay away from the effective range of his adversary who is effective only in close quarters combat. That is why Goliath kept taunting David by saying, “Come to me so that I might feed your flesh to the birds of the heavens and the beasts of the field.”
But then Goliath wasn’t the perfect warrior either. We already mentioned him being weighed down by armor so he’d be very slow despite his strength but he has one fatal weakness. It is mentioned that Goliath was led by an attendant while going to the field. According to the Indiana Medical Journal in an analysis they released in 1960 about Goliath’s behavior that time, Goliath was severely nearsighted as his giantism caused by acromegaly is affecting his eyesight. Goliath is literally a blind 7-foot giant who also had double vision because he thought David was carrying two sticks when he was only carrying one when he said to David, “Am I a dog that you should come to with sticks?”
And so the battle between them happened and it was a swift victory for David. Goliath never even stood a chance.
Now, for us, here is a lesson. Allah is not going to simply give us what we want of blessings that we pray for or help when we are in trouble. He wants us to work for it. Allah has ordered us to actively seek his bounties by working. Allah has even told Moses to strike the sea with his staff for it to divide. Allah ordered Mary who was weakened by childbirth to shake the tree in order for its fruits to fall. Prophet Muhammad ordered us to tie our camel first before we put our trust in Allah that we’d not lose our camel. In other words, this is Biblical or Quranic equivalent of a Filipino saying: Nasa Diyos ang awa nasa tao ang gawa.
