The road is the best school (Lessons from the story of Saul and Goliath IV)

The road is the best school. Lessons that no established school will give are learned on the road. But of course, like all schools, only by those who know how to take the lessons. Passing along a road is no guarantee of learning all the lessons of that road. Those arduous roads are full of all sorts of perils and all sorts of hardships. Every peril, every hardship is a test, and no one has been given a guarantee in advance of passing through it.

Some grow so accustomed to this road that they create a comfort and a domain of power for themselves within it. Forgetting that they are travelers of the road, they presume to claim the road as their own. Some grow tired, think they cannot go on, and withdraw to the side in the middle of the road.

Some confuse their relationship with the road and with their companions, and fall prey to the seduction of those coming from the opposite road. Some think the road has ended, think they have arrived, and set up a lodge somewhere along the way. Yet the road does not end, the hardship of the road does not end either, and union is not attained until the soul leaves the body.

With most of Talut's soldiers, who according to some accounts numbered eighty thousand men (at least four fifths of them), his ways part already at the first stop, because they cite his identity, his origin and his lineage as a pretext. The rest submit to the charismatic authority that Talut established in the first stage by recovering and bringing back the Ark that was in the hands of their enemies, who had caused their humiliation.

But even these who submitted are not yet sure he has the qualities to bear this great struggle. They need to be tested, but this is not his idea; it is God's command. It is not he but God who will conduct the test, yet the privilege of announcing it has been granted to him. Those who, at a river they will come upon, put their mouths to it and drink their fill will have failed this test, but there will be no harm in their taking a handful with their hands and drinking it.

"When Talut set out with the soldiers, he said to them: 'God will test you with a river. Whoever drinks from it is not of me, and whoever does not taste it is of me, except for those who take a handful with their hand.' But except for a very few of them, they drank from it." (Baqara: 249).

What the nature of this river is, God knows best. There are surely many who explain that this river holds a symbolism of how all social movements, in their periods in power, forget their ideals, their concerns, their causes, incline toward worldly life and the blessings of power, plunge into the rush for spoils, and covet more than their due.

Today this story is often invoked in this dimension and for the possibilities of association it contains. There is no obstacle to understanding it so, provided that we do not break away from the literal meaning of the event. The loyalty of the masses gathered around a leader of this charisma, who has brought a people out of humiliation and, through a miracle, offered them the hope of future victory as a near certainty, may not be long-lasting.

There are far more meaningful lessons here about politics as well. No community's loyalty to its leader remains at the same level forever. Even a leader of Talut's caliber, who secured a great consensus when setting out, can lose significant masses at an initial test that might be considered simple.

He loses them, but he knows that this is not a defeat. He has come to know the people whose quality has been tested for the real great battle, and has come to see fully with whom he can walk, and how far.

Yet when they reach the water, most drop away, and he crosses with those who remain, who are fewer still. But the test does not end here either. This time there comes a new test for the people, with their own selves, their fears, their courage, their emotions. A new situation arises regarding how those who remain see themselves, how they see the enemy, and how much they trust in God. As a result of those dropping away at every juncture, very few are left, and those left are afraid of facing the enemy. In ordinary times they had always magnified in their eyes the enemy armies, strong enough to defeat them, while seeing themselves as very weak.

To be realistic, in this comparison they are indeed very weak. In no objective, realistic comparison is it possible for so few people to face an army that was like the superpower of the time and defeat it. Yet the journey they have set out on requires them to hold a faith that, if they are believers, they will attain victory. With the fall of those who were afraid, a number remains that is about one fifth of what was left. It is reported that this final number was equal to the number of the believers who fought the Quraysh in the Battle of Badr.

"When Talut and those who believed with him had crossed the river, they said, 'We have no strength today against Calut and his army.' But those who knew that they would meet God said, 'How many a small company has overcome a large company by God's permission. God is with the patient.'" (Baqara: 249).

The verses containing the story of Talut and Calut are thus narrated in an atmosphere that was already preparing the Muslims for the Battle of Badr. "How many a small company overcomes a large company, by God's permission." But the real condition here is that the believers truly believe, and that they give importance not to lineage, to sycophancy, to clientelism, to partisanship, but to piety, competence and merit, that as they set out they not be taken by the glitter of the spoils, the temptation of worldly blessings, the corruption of power, that they endure the hardship of the road, and that they not forget that worldly life is nothing but a road whose account will be settled in the hereafter.

The rest stand up before Calut's army with a faith. After many trials, although their numbers have dwindled greatly, they do not disperse. They show no trace of the psychological unrest, anxiety and disarray normally expected of those who experience such a separation. Having passed all the tests successfully, as those who know God as their guardian, they stand before the enemy with their faith and morale increased still further.

Does the fact that a very small community goes out, relying on God, against very large groups, recklessly and without taking any precaution, mean that they have abandoned the plan of precaution entirely?

This is precisely the question that needs to be asked and examined at this point in the story.