An Innocent Love Story from the Divine Scriptures
by, Dr Irfan Shahzad
Zipporah was a pastoral girl. She was living a simple village life. Her activities spanned around tending her old father, looking after her goats with her sister and daily homely affairs. Her innocent life was going unruffled, un-rippled. She had no idea what fortune, her future held in store for her; she did not know her kismet was smiling at her through the doors of heaven.
As a matter of routine, she, along with her sister, fetched her goats to the village-well to water them after their grazing. But the callous shepherds of the vicinity, all flocked around the well, altercating over watering their animals, and did not care the poor girls, who were standing for their turn. In such a situation, it was not becoming for these chaste girls to fend for water rubbing their shoulders with men. Zipporah and her sister had to wait, controlling their thirsty goats from rushing towards the well. In addition to all that, there was a big bucket on the well, which needed power of more than one man to be pulled out from the well. It was not possible for the poor girls to pull that huge bucket by themselves. No one would help them. Rather, those villagers used to drive these girls and their goats away in order to water their own animals. The girls had to be content with whatever water left in the bucket and around the troughs to water their thirsty goats after the shepherds were gone. That was their destiny.
But that was a different day. It was going to change everything.
Zipporah, with her sister, came to the well with her goats. While waiting and controlling their goats, the girls noticed that a weary, but a well-built, handsome gentleman was sitting at some distance, watching the whole scene. He seemed to be some outsider. After a while, the man stood up, approached the girls and asked them: ‘What is the trouble with you? Why are you are waiting with your thirsty goats controlling them and do not go to the well to water them?’
“We cannot water our flock”, they replied, “till the shepherds have driven away theirs.” They added, ‘Our father is a very old man.”
That was the reason that the girls had to do the shepherd hood by themselves. The man got angry on that unfairness. Without a word, he briskly walked straight to the well, the crowd fell in awe for his formidable personality and his air of determination; they gave him way. He called out the girls to bring their goats. He single-handedly hurled out the huge bucket and watered the girls’ goats. Then, he went away into a shade without waiting for the girls to thank him.
This show of manhood, from a stranger, who, despite his weariness due to a long journey, helped the girls without expectation of any reward, left a deep impression on the girls.
That man was none other than Moses, who was going to be a great prophet of God in the near future. He had escaped the clutches of the Pharaoh of Egypt and the police, because he had mistakenly killed an Egyptian, who was quarrelling with a man of his own clan. Moses had travelled a long way from Egypt to that village of Madyan to save his life. Now, at the outskirts of the village, he met those girls, one of which was going to be his future wife, Zipporah. But how that simple meeting concluded into a marriage? This is what we are going to read in the following passages in the light of the divine scriptures: The Quran and the Bible.
The girls on that fortunate day hurriedly came back home before the usual time. The Bible tells this episode of the story: And when they came to Reuel their father, he said, How [is it that] you have come so soon today? And they said, An Egyptian delivered us out of the hand of the shepherds, and also drew [water] enough for us, and watered the flock. And he said to his daughters, and where [is] he? Why [is] it [that] you have left the man? Call him, that he may eat bread. (Exodus 2: 18-20.)
The next scene is described in the Qur’an: [Shortly] afterwards, one of the two [maidens] approached him, walking shyly, and said: “Behold, my father invites you, so that he might duly reward you for your having watered [our flock] for us. (28:25) “Walking shyly” is worth pondering upon. The Qur’an never uses superfluous words. To mention the gait of a woman contains meaningful implications. Gait is the mirror of personality, an indicator of character. An immodest woman needs no advertisement, but a luring gait to show her erotism, while a modest gait is the first and the complete introduction of the chastity of a woman and its testimony.
Moses (peace be upon him) accepted her invitation, but he, according to some reports, asked her to walk behind him while leading him to her home, as his gaze might not fall on her. Now, Moses (peace be upon him) was in her home. He told the whole story to the old father of the girl. The old man soothed him and said: “Fear not. You have escaped from the wrongdoing people. (28:25)
Now, the moment came, when we notice that the girl’s feelings of love or liking for Moses found a little vent, but in a covert and a very decent manner. She said: Said one of the two [daughters]: “O my father! Hire him: for, behold, the best [man] that thou couldst hire is one who is [as] strong and worthy of trust [as he]! (28:26) Her father felt strange and asked her how she knew his qualities in that short meeting.
She said: “I saw his power the way he watered (our flock) at the well; and of his trustworthiness, he kept lowered his gaze from me.”(Tafsir al-Tabri, vol. 19, p. 562) Woman is particularly the best judge of man. Zipporah noticed two qualities of Moses (peace be upon him) in the very first meeting: strength and trustworthiness, which are not only fit for a labourer as she overtly said, but also for a husband as the guardian and protector of woman, who does not betray her trust and protect her from odds. She might have seen in Moses (peace be upon him) a strong and trustworthy husband, too.
The wise father sensed the covert liking of her innocent daughter for the stranger, who had won her heart with her manly and gentlemanly merits. Now, what he did? He did not rebuke her daughter for harbouring some tender feelings for a gentleman, which she could not help feel. He did not ask her to shun these feelings to win a medal of a chaste girl. He did not tell her that the best girl is the one who lead a life with a stone in her bosom instead of a beating heart. No, he did not; rather, he declared the prospective marriage of her daughter with Moses (peace be upon him) without any delay:
He said, “Indeed, I wish to wed you one of these, my two daughters, on [the condition] that you serve me for eight years; but if you complete ten, it will be [as a favor] from you. And I do not wish to put you in difficulty. You will find me, if Allah wills, from among the righteous.” (Quran, 28:27)
The old man maintained a dignified position by not nominating the girl specifically. He made the matter of marrying Zipporah to Moses (peace be upon him) a little ambiguous to maintain the requisite decorum, which is necessary in such matters of matrimony. He satisfied his daughter on the one hand, and on the other, he put the condition on Moses (peace be upon him) of spending eight or ten years there, so that, he could have enough time to supervise and train the young man, who was going to be his son in law, to ensure the future of her daughter in pious and trustworthy hands.
One can see that no aspect of human nature and decorum of social norms were ignored.
If love is painted something like a sin or an indecency in itself, it generates negative emotions in the person, who suffers from love. One becomes guilty to God and conscience, one’s personality splits: either one leads a life of agony or rebels against the religion and the society. If some lawful and decent outlet is not introduced, this love becomes madness, obsession and leads one towards wrong ways.
The story of Moses and girl also tells that what qualities of man strike the strings of a woman’s heart and create the real music of love: that a man should be manly and trustworthy to earn true love of a pure girl.
Coming back to the story, Moses (Peace be upon him) fulfilled that term of 8 or 10 years and the old man, according to his promise, married Zipporah to Moses (peace be upon him). The Bible tells the last episode of this innocent love story with a happy ending: And Moses was content to dwell with the man: and he gave Moses Zipporah his daughter. {2:22} And she bore [him] a son, and he called his name Gershom: for he said, I have been a stranger in a strange land. (Exodus 2:21-22) The story imparts a number of lessons for each one of us, for every role we can have in the matters like this, I hope we may learn them.