Sing you (the praise of Allah) along with him...

Sing you (the praise of Allah) along with him, and (you) the birds (too)…” The Arabic word /’awibbi/ originally is derived from the term /ta’wib/ in the sense of preponderance and turning the sound in the throat of a person. This Arabic term is sometimes used in the sense of repentance, too, because its reality is returning unto Allah.

All the particles of the world, of course, entirely say the glorification of Allah and praise Him, whether someone like David does the same with them, or not, yet the privilege of David was in this that at the time of singing loudly and changing his inward murmuring into outwardly singing in the same way that concerning the glorification of pebbles in the Prophet’s hand has also been mentioned in the Islamic narrations.

Imam Sadiq (as) in a tradition said: “Verily David went out (to the farms and deserts) while he was reciting Zabur, and when he was reciting Zabur there was no mountain, no stone, and no bird but murmured it with him.” [^4] Next to mentioning this spiritual favour, the Qur’an refers to a material favour, where it says: “…and We softened the iron for him,” It may be said that Allah taught David, in a miraculous way, how to soften the iron in a manner that he could produce some thin but strong iron bars for waving and making a coat of mail.

Or it may be said that before David, in order to defend in the battles, the plates of iron were used which were both heavy and when they fastened them to their bodies, they were so stable and inflexible that made the strivers very inconvenient. Until then, none could make anything like armour from some stable narrow iron bars that could be put on easily over the body like clothing and could be harmonious and soft with the movements of the body.

But the apparent of this holy verse shows that it was by the command of Allah that iron became miraculously soft in the hand of David. It does not matter that the same One Who gave the property of softening the iron to the hot furnace, gave the same property in another form to the David’s fingers.

Some Islamic narrations have pointed to this meaning, too.[^5] In a tradition it is cited that Allah sent revelation to David, saying: “You are a good servant save that you get your sustenance from public treasury.” Then David wept for forty days (and asked Allah to lead him somehow).