Prophet Dawud Story for Kids

The youngest in the army

Talut led an army out against Jalut. The Quran records the moment: those who were certain they would meet Allah said, How many a small company has overcome a large company by permission of Allah (2:249).

Then, in a single verse: So they defeated them by permission of Allah, and Dawud killed Jalut, and Allah gave him the kingship and wisdom and taught him from that which He willed (2:251).

The Quran spends one line on the fight. The famous details — the sling, the stones, the size of Jalut, the refusal of armour — are not in it. Children can still be told the story is about a young man who was not the obvious choice, because that much the Quran does support: the army was small, and he was the one who did it.

A voice the mountains joined

What follows is strange and beautiful, and children love it. And We subjected the mountains to exalt Allah with him, and the birds (21:79). Again in Surah Saba: O mountains, repeat Allah's praises with him, and the birds (34:10).

In the same verse: And We made the iron soft for him — and then the practical instruction, Make full coats of mail, and calculate precisely the links (34:11). He was taught a trade, and the Quran records the technical detail of getting the rings right.

That combination is the whole point of him. Mountains joined his praise, and he still sat and made armour properly. The Quran mentions both in adjacent lines without treating it as a contrast.

The two men who came over the wall

In Surah Sad, two men climb the wall into his private chamber. They startle him. One says his brother has ninety-nine ewes and he has one, and that his brother has pressed him to hand it over (38:21-23).

Dawud answers immediately: he has certainly wronged you. And then the Quran says he realised he was being tested, asked forgiveness of his Lord, and fell down bowing (38:24-25).

What was he corrected for? Not for a crime. For deciding before hearing the other side. In the verses just after, he is addressed directly and told to judge between people in truth and not follow desire (38:26).

For a child, this is one of the most usable passages in the whole Quran. A prophet, a king, given a book and a voice the mountains answered — and the thing he was pulled up on was answering too fast.

Where the story is in the Quran

Read the passage itself with your child rather than only the retelling. Four verses of the actual Quran are worth more than a page of summary, and a child who has heard the story then meets it in the words it was revealed in.

The one idea to leave a child with

He was given a kingdom, a book and a voice the mountains joined in with, and he still made armour with his hands and was still corrected for judging too fast. Nothing he was given exempted him from either.

What age is this story for?

Seven for Jalut and the mountains. The two men over the wall lands at about nine or ten, when a child has already had the experience of being sure they knew who was in the wrong and turning out to be missing half the story.

What is Quranic and what is not

The sling and the five smooth stones are not in the Quran. Neither is the size of Jalut or the scene of Dawud refusing armour. The Quran gives the fight one line (2:251) and moves to what came after.

The well-known practice of fasting every other day is called the fast of Dawud, and that comes from authentic hadith rather than from the Quran. It is a good example to give a child of a second, different kind of source.

The Zabur is mentioned as having been given to him (4:163, 17:55), but the Quran does not quote from it or describe its contents.