The Knife and the Child

There is another case that was presented to Dāwūd, and this is in a hadith narrated by al-Bukhārī. Two women disputed. What happened is that these two women were shepherds, so they went out with their sheep, and they had their infants; the infants were the same age. And they left their infants somewhere and went talking, or maybe shepherding. A wolf came and ate one of the infants.

When the women came back and found that one of the infants had been eaten, both of them claimed that the infant who was alive belonged to them. Each one of them is saying: he is my son. And they fought with each other, and they could not solve the problem. They went to Dāwūd. Dāwūd listened to both sides of the story, and he made the judgement that the child should go to the eldest of them, al-kubrā.

When they were leaving the court, Sulaymān asked them what had happened, and they told him what happened. Sulaymān said: get me the child. And he said: bring me a knife. So the women said: what do you want to do with the knife? Sulaymān said: if you are not able to solve the problem and know who this child belongs to, I am going to split the child in two between you.

The youngest woman immediately said: no, it belongs to her; it is her son. Sulaymān (peace be upon him) used this surprise against these two women, because he knew that the mother would not want this to happen to her child, and a reaction would immediately show on her. So Sulaymān, by this, was able to tell that the youngest one was the mother — the one who said, no, it belongs to the eldest one, because she wanted to save her son. Sulaymān said: then you take the child. And he gave it back to the youngest of them.