Talut (Saul)

Talut is the king God sent to the Children of Israel after Musa, so that they would fight under his banner. Sha'rawi holds that God chose him, not the people; that the criteria were knowledge and bodily stature; and that he came from neither the prophetic line nor the royal one ^{1 2}.

Sha'rawi reports that the Israelites objected that Talut was not of the notables and had no wealth. The answer was that God had chosen him and given him breadth of knowledge and stature. He holds that the choice rests on wisdom and competence, not kinship or standing ^{1 2}. He also notes that they searched for his lineage and found him in neither line ¹.

God made the sign of his kingship the return of the ark, which holds sakina from God (see the ark and sakina) ³.

Sha'rawi says Talut tested his troops at a river. Whoever drank much was removed; whoever took only a handful stayed. Most drank, except a few ^{4 5 6}. He reads the trial as a test, not a punishment, and holds that one handful is enough to keep alive, so it is a necessity for fighting ⁶. Dawud later carried out the task, as the following verses show ⁷.

This is Sha'rawi's reading alone. The tafsir and history books on Talut, the academic view and any non-Sunni view have not yet been checked, so nothing is attributed to anyone else.