Al-Qasas (The Stories)

26. “One of the two (damsels) said: ‘O my father! Employ him. Verily the best of those that you can employ is the strong man, the faithful one’.”

Hadrat Imam Rida (as) once said:

“Hadrat Shu‘ayb asked her daughter: ‘How did you recognize the trustworthiness of this youth that you called him faithful?’ She said: ‘When I conveyed your invitation to him, he told me to guide him from his behind in order that he might not look at my stature.”1

The girls of a family have the right of suggestion based upon logic and wisdom, too; and good relations between parents and children, and freedom of exposition and declaration in the family is a value.

This is the sixth scene from the life of Moses (as) in this great event.

Moses (as) entered the house of Shu‘ayb; it was a simple rural house, a pure house full of spirituality. When he explained his story life for Shu‘ayb, one of his daughters began speaking and by a short but expressive expression suggested her father to employ him for protecting their sheep, because he had taken the examination of his power and purity and faithfulness both.

The verse says:

“One of the two (damsels) said: ‘O my father! Employ him. Verily the best of those that you can employ is the strong man, the faithful one’.”

A girl who has been grown up in the house of a great prophet must speak like this, so politely and accurately, and she utters the Truth with the least words and in some short sentences.

How did this girl know that this young man was both strong and trustworthy, notwithstanding it was the first time that she had seen him beside the well and his background was not clear for her?

The answer to this question is evident. She found out his strength when he went toward the well and put the shepherds aside for getting the right of these oppressed girls, and driving the bucket out of well by himself. His trustworthiness and honesty was proved when, on the way to the house, he did not agree that a young girl walks in front of him and the wind might displace her clothes.

Moreover, through the truthful explanation of his life story that he stated for Shu‘ayb both his strength became clear, because he struggled against the Coptic, and his trustworthiness and honesty, because he did not collude with the tyrants.