A Comparative Study of the Story of Prophet David in Islamic, jewish Sources and Nezami’s Khamsa

Document Type : Research Paper I Open Access I Released under (CC BY-NC 4.0) license

Author

Faculty of Persian Literature and Foreign Languages, University of Tabriz, Tabriz, Iran

Abstract

The Old and New Testaments provide detailed accounts of the life and story of David and no document or source surpasses the Torah in revealing the specifics of his life. The characteristics and attributes ascribed to him in the Bible elevate him beyond an ordinary king, yet they do not explicitly confirm his status as a prophet. Moreover, the Bible attributes certain moral failings to him, which directly contradict the doctrine of prophetic infallibility—a position firmly rejected in the Islamic world, particularly in Shia theology, through rational and textual evidence. Despite this, Islamic sources have not remained entirely immune to the influence of such weak and baseless beliefs found in the Bible. The Holy Quran, while introducing David as one of the great prophets, also mentions his unique qualities and abilities. Hakim Nezami of Ganja, due to his extensive studies in Islamic sciences and familiarity with Jewish and Christian traditions, makes noteworthy allusions to the story of David (PBUH) in his Khamsa, which deserve careful examination and research. The primary question of this study is: What are the similarities and differences between Nezami’s narrative of David’s story and other sources, and on what foundation are his The findings indicate that Nezami does not deviate from Islamic and non-Islamic sources in narrating the story of David. However, his perspective contains some novel, subtle, and thought-provoking points, which are analyzed in detail within the paper.

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Publisher: University of Tabriz       Copyright © The Authors   

   

 

This is an open access article distributed under the following Creative Commons license: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Iranian History of Culture
Volume 2, Issue 2
September 2025
Pages 1-21

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History

  • Receive Date: 21 July 2025
  • Revise Date: 06 October 2025
  • Accept Date: 12 November 2025
  • Publish Date: 23 September 2025

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