Zipporah was a
pastoral girl. She was living a simple village life. Her activities span around
tending her old father,
looking after her goats and daily homely affairs. Her innocent life was
going unruffled, un-rippled. She had no idea what fortune, her future held in
store for her; she did not know her kismet was smiling at her through the doors
of heaven.
As a matter of
routine, she, along with her sister, would bring her goats to the village well
to water them, after grazing them in the pastures. But the callous shepherds of
the area, all flocked around the well, altercating over watering their animals,
and did not care the poor girls. In such a situation it was not becoming for these
chaste girls to fend with men to water their goats. Zipporah and her sister had
to wait, controlling their thirsty goats from rushing towards the well. In
addition to all that, there was a big bucket on the well, which needed power of
more than one man to be pulled out from the well. It was not possible for the
poor girls to pull that huge bucket by themselves. No one would help them. Rather,
those villagers used to drive these girls and their goats away in order to
water their own animals. The girls had to be content with whatever water left
in the bucket and around the troughs to water their thirsty goats, after the
shepherds were gone. That was their destiny and they had to get used to it.
But that day
was a different day. It was going to change everything.
Zipporah, with
her sister, came to the well with her goats. While waiting and controlling their
goats, the girls noticed that a weary, but a well-built, handsome gentleman was
sitting at some distance, watching the whole scene. He seemed to be some
outsider. The girls had never seen him before. After a while, the man stood up,
approached the girls and asked them:
‘What is the
trouble with you? Why are you are waiting with your thirsty goats controlling
them and do not go to the well to water them?’
“We cannot
water our flock”, they replied, “till the shepherds have driven away theirs.”
They added, ‘Our father is a very old man.”
That was reason
that the girls had to do that shepherdhood. The man felt angry. Without a word,
he briskly walked straight to the well, fending the callous crowd, who fell in
awe for his formidable personality and his air of determination; they gave him
way. He called out the girls to bring their goats. He single-handedly hurled
out the huge bucket and watered the girls’ goats. Then, he went away into a shade
without waiting for the girls to thank him.
This show of
manhood, from a stranger, who, despite his weariness due to a long journey
helped the girls without expectation of any reward, left a deep impression on
the girls.
That man was
none other than Moses, who was going to be a great prophet of God in the near
future. He had escaped the clutches of the Pharaoh of Egypt and his police
because he had mistakenly killed an Egyptian, who was quarrelling with a man of
his own clan. He had travelled a long journey from Egypt to that village of
Madyan to save his life. Now, at the outskirts of the village, he met those
girls, one of which was going to be his future wife, Zipporah. But how that
simple meeting concluded into a marriage? This is what we are going to read in
the following passages in the light of the divine scriptures: The Quran and the
Bible.
The girls on that
fortunate day, after their goats were watered by Moses (peace be upon him), hurriedly
came back home before the usual time. The Bible tells this episode of the story:
And when they
came to Reuel their father, he said, How [is it that] you have come so soon
today? And they said, An Egyptian delivered us out of the hand of the
shepherds, and also drew [water] enough for us, and watered the flock. And he
said to his daughters, and where [is] he? Why [is] it [that] you have left the
man? Call him, that he may eat bread. (Exodus 2: 18-20.)
The next scene
is described by the Qur’an, elliptically, but with more details of the
essentials:
[Shortly]
afterwards, one of the two [maidens] approached him, walking shyly, and said:
"Behold, my father invites you, so that he might duly reward you for your having
watered [our flock] for us. (28:25)
“Walking shyly”
is worth pondering upon. The Qur’an never uses superfluous words. To mention
the gait of a woman contains meaningful implications. Gait is the mirror of
personality, an indicator of character. An immodest woman needs no
advertisement, but a luring gait to show her erotism, while a modest gait is
the first and the complete introduction of the chastity of a woman and also its
testimony.
Moses (peace be
upon him) accepted her invitation, but he, according to some reports, asked her
to walk behind him while leading him to her home, as his gaze might not fall on
her. Now, Moses (peace be upon him) was in her home. He told the whole story to
the old father of the girl. The old man soothed him and said:
"Fear not.
You have escaped from the wrongdoing people. (28:25)
Now, the moment
came, when we notice that the girl’s feelings of love or liking for Moses revealed
themselves, but in a covert and a very decent manner:
Said one of the
two [daughters]: "O my father! Hire him: for, behold, the best [man] that
thou couldst hire is one who is [as] strong and worthy of trust [as he]! (28:26)
Her father felt strange and
asked her how she knew his qualities in that short meeting.
She said: “I saw his power the way he watered (our flock) at
the well; and of his trustworthiness, he kept lowered his gaze from me.”(Tafsir al-Tabri, vol. 19, p. 562)
Woman is the
best judge of man. Zipporah noticed the two qualities of Moses (peace be upon
him) in the very first meeting: strength and trustworthiness, which are not
only fit for a labourer as she overtly said, but also for a husband as the
guardian and protector of woman, who does not betray her trust and protect her
from odds. She might have seen in Moses (peace be upon him) a strong and
trustworthy husband, too.
The wise father
sensed the covert liking of her innocent daughter for the stranger, who had won
her heart with her manly and gentlemanly merits. Now, what he did? He did not rebuke
her daughter for harbouring some tender feelings for the gentleman, which she
could not help to feel. He did not ask her to eradicate these feelings to win a
medal of a chaste girl. He did not tell her that the best girl is the one who
led a life with a stone in her bosom instead of a beating heart. No, he did
not; rather, he declared the prospective marriage of her daugher with Moses
(peace be upon him) without any delay:
He said,
"Indeed, I wish to wed you one of these, my two daughters, on [the
condition] that you serve me for eight years; but if you complete ten, it will
be [as a favor] from you. And I do not wish to put you in difficulty. You will
find me, if Allah wills, from among the righteous." (28:27)
The old
man maintained a dignified position by not nominating the girl specifically. He
made the matter of marrying Zipporah to Moses (peace be upon him) a little
ambiguous to maintain the requisite decorum, which is necessary in such matter
of matrimony.
He
satisfied his daughter on the one hand, and on the other, he put the condition
on Moses (peace be upon him) of spending eight or ten years there, so that, he
could have enough time to supervise and train the young man, who was going to
be his son in law, to ensure the future of her daughter in the pious and
trustworthy hands. One can see that no aspect of human nature and decorum of
social norms were ignored.
If love is
painted something like a sin or an indecency in itself, it generates negative
emotions in the person, who suffers from love. One becomes guilty to God and
conscience. One’s personality splits: either one leads a life of agony or
rebels against the religion and the society. If some lawful and decent outlet
is not introduced, this love becomes madness, obsession and leads one towards
wrong ways.
The story of
Moses and girl tells that what qualities of opposite gender strike the strings
of a woman’s heart and create the real music of love: that a man should be manly
and decent to earn true love of a pure girl.
Coming back to
the story, Moses (Peace be upon him) fulfilled that term of 8 or 10 years and
the old man, according to his promise, married Zipporah to Moses (peace be upon
him). The Bible tells the last episode of this innocent love story with had a happy
ending:
And Moses was
content to dwell with the man: and he gave Moses Zipporah his daughter. {2:22}
And she bore [him] a son, and he called his name Gershom: for he said, I have
been a stranger in a strange land. (Exodus 2:21-22)
The story
imparts a number of lessons for each one of us, for every role we can have in
the matters like this, I hope we will learn them.
By Dr Irfan
Shahzad
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/irfan.shahzad.2008
No comments:
Post a Comment