No One Arrives Ready

Dāwūd (peace be upon him) reached this stage after he went through training. See, people do not suddenly come out of nowhere with all of these qualities. We learn things through our knowledge and our life experiences — two sources: knowledge on one side, and life experience on the other. That is how we learn. And that is why we need to understand the importance of the concept of tarbiyah. Tarbiyah is important in Islam: tarbiyah, training and raising a person from one stage to another. You cannot have a revolutionary, sudden change; things have to go step by step.

And Allah (swt) put the Companions in the furnace; He put them through tests for years and years, so that in the end, when they graduated, they graduated with the highest certificates. Put the Companions in any situation, and they will never fail, because they went through trial after trial, test after test, in the school of Muhammad (peace be upon him). When they graduated in the end, the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) knew that he had left behind men who could carry the message. But they went through experiences, and they learned from their mistakes. We are not born with all the qualities.

The same with the anbiyāʾ. I mean, with the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him), Allah put him through forty years of preparation; he did not become a prophet when he was born. Allah (swt) planned the life of Muhammad (peace be upon him) day by day; everything in the life of Muhammad (peace be upon him), for the forty years before prophethood, was for a purpose. And the same thing with Mūsā (peace be upon him) — we already talked about this, when he was raised in the palace of Firʿawn; that was an experience for him. And with Yūsuf (peace be upon him). And with Dāwūd (peace be upon him), Allah (swt) also prepared him through some tests. We are going to talk about one of these tests, as a sample.