According to the teaching of the Prophet, “a virgin daughter gives her consent to marriage by silence.” He also taught “that a woman ripe in years shall have her consent asked, and if she remain silent her silence is consent, but if she do not consent, she shall not be forced.” But this tradition is also to be compared with another, in which he said, “There is no marriage without the permission of the guardians.” (Mishkāt, xiii. c. iv. pt. 2.) Hence the difference between the learned doctors on this subject.
The author of the Ak͟hlāq-i-Jalālī says it is not advisable to teach girls to read and write, and this is the general feeling amongst Muḥammadans in all parts of the world, although it is considered right to enable them to recite the Qurʾān and the liturgical prayers.
The father or guardian is to be blamed who does not marry his daughter at an early age, for Muḥammad is related to have said, “It is written in the Book of Moses, that whosoever does not marry his daughter when she hath reached the age of twelve years is responsible for any sin she may commit.”
The ancient Arabs used to call the angels the “daughters of God,” and objected strongly, as the Badawīs do in the present day, to female offspring, and they used to bury their infant daughters alive. These practices Muḥammad reprobates in the Qurʾān, [Sūrah xvi. 59]: “And they ascribe daughters unto God! Glory be to Him! But they desire them not for themselves. For when the birth of a daughter is announced to any one of them, dark shadows settle on his face, and he is sad; he hideth him from the people because of the ill tidings. Shall he keep it with disgrace, or bury it in the dust? Are not their judgments wrong?”
Mr. Rodwell remarks on this verse: “Thus Rabbinism teaches that to be a woman is a great degradation. The modern Jew says in his Daily Prayers, fol. 5, 6, ‘Blessed art thou, O Lord our God! King of the Universe! who hath not made me a woman.’”
DŪMAH (دومة). A fortified town held by the Christian chief Ukaidar, who was defeated by the Muslim general K͟hālid, and by him converted to Muḥammadanism, A.H. 9. But the mercenary character of Ukaidar’s conversion led him to revolt after Muḥammad’s death. (Muir’s Life of Mahomet, vol. iv. p. 191.)
DAVID. Arabic Dāwud, or Dāwūd. A king of Israel and a Prophet, to whom God revealed the Zabūr, or Book of Psalms. [[ZABUR].] He has no special title or kalimah, as all Muslims are agreed that he was not a law-giver or the founder of a dispensation. The account of him in the Qurʾān is exceedingly meagre. It is given as follows, with the commentator’s remarks translated in italics by Mr. Lane:—
“And God gave him (David) the kingship over the children of Israel, and wisdom, after the death of Samuel and Saul, and they [namely these two gifts] had not been given together to any one before him; and He taught him what He pleased, as the art of making coats of mail, and the language of birds. And were it not for God’s repelling men, one by another, surely the earth had become corrupt by the predominance of the polytheists and the slaughter of the Muslims and the ruin of the places of worship: but God is beneficent to the peoples, and hath repelled some by others.” ([Sūrah ii. 227].)
“Hath the story of the two opposing parties come unto thee, when they ascended over the walls of the oratory of David, having been prevented going in unto him by the door, because of his being engaged in devotion? When they went in unto David, and he was frightened at them, they said, Fear not: we are two opposing parties. It is said that they were two parties of more than one each; and it is said that they were two individuals, angels, who came as two litigants, to admonish David, who had ninety-nine wives, and had desired the wife of a person who had none but her, and married her and taken her as his wife. [One of them said,] One of us hath wronged the other; therefore judge between us with truth, and be not unjust, but direct us into the right way. Verily this my brother in religion had nine-and-ninety ewes, and I had one ewe; and he said, Make me her keeper. And he overcame me in the dispute.—And the other confessed him to have spoken truth.—[David] said, Verily he hath wronged thee in demanding thy ewe to add her to his ewes; and verily many associates wrong one another, except those who believe and do righteous deeds: and few indeed are they.—And the two angels said, ascending in their [proper or assumed] forms to heaven, The man hath passed sentence against himself. So David was admonished. And David perceived that We had tried him by his love of that woman; wherefore he asked pardon of his Lord, and fell down bowing himself (or prostrating himself), and repented. So We forgave him that; and verily for him [was ordained] a high rank with Us (that is, an increase of good fortune in this world), and [there shall be for him] an excellent retreat in the world to come.” ([Sūrah xxxviii. 20–24].)
“We compelled the mountains to glorify Us, with David, and the birds also, on his commanding them to do so, when he experienced languor; and We did this. And We taught him the art of making coats of mail (for before his time plates of metal were used) for you among mankind in general, that they might defend you from your suffering in warring with your enemies.—Will ye then, O people of Mecca, be thankful for My favours, believing the apostles?” ([Sūrah xxi. 79, 80].)