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While we thus see Ibn Daud, unlike Halevi, adopting the philosophical explanation of prophecy, which tries to bring it within the class of natural psychological phenomena and relates it to dreams, he could not help recognizing that one cannot ignore the supernatural character of Biblical prophecy without being untrue to the Bible.
The assassination of his nephew availed Daud but little, as the country was at once divided into two opposing factions, and on May 21, A.D. 1378, after a reign of only one month, the murderer was himself assassinated while at prayer in the great mosque of the capital. Meanwhile Bukka Raya overrun the Doab, advanced as far as the river Krishna, and invested the fortress of Raichur.
If Ibn Daud had made himself famous by a Biblical commentary or a halakic work, or if his philosophic treatise had the distinction of being written in popular and attractive style, like Bahya's "Duties of the Hearts," or Halevi's "Cusari," it might have fared better. As it is, it suffers from its conciseness and technical terminology.
He omits wisdom as one of the Platonic virtues and, unlike Plato for whom justice consists in a harmony of the other three virtues and has no psychological seat peculiar to it, Ibn Daud makes justice the virtue of the rational soul. The end of practical philosophy is, he says, happiness.
But it was, and it had remained a mere paper acknowledgment. He had paid no tribute, and he had rendered no homage. During the second expedition of Akbar to Gujarát this prince had died. His son and immediate successor had been promptly murdered by his nobles, and these, constituting only a fraction, though a powerful fraction, of the court, had raised a younger brother, Dáúd Khán, to the throne.
When Mr Sundrum mounted into the pulpit, and read the psalm and said the prayer, there was nothing particular; but when he prepared to preach, there was a rustle of expectation among all present, for the text he chose was from Romans, chapter xiii. and verses 1 and 2; from which he made an endeavour to demonstrate, as I heard afterwards, for I was then too young to discern the matter of it myself, the duty and advantages of passive obedience and, growing warm with his ungospel rhetoric, he began to rail and to daud the pulpit in condemnation of the spirit which had kithed in Edinburgh.
Annandpal had entered into an alliance with Daud; and as there were two passes only by which the Mahometans could enter Multan, Annandpal had taken upon himself to secure that by the way of Peshawur, which Mahmud chanced to take. The Sultan, returning from the pursuit, entered Multan by the way of Betanda, which was his first intention.
But as an Aristotelian, Ibn Daud could not consistently stand by the above standpoint as the last word in this question. Accordingly we find him elsewhere in true Aristotelian fashion give priority to theoretical knowledge.
We must still make clear in which of the four senses of the Aristotelian substance the soul is to be regarded. By the theory of exclusion Ibn Daud decides that the soul is substance in the sense in which we apply that term to "form." The form appears upon the common matter and "specifies" it, and makes it what it is, bringing it from potentiality to actuality.
He then called Daood Khan before him, and gave him a harsh reprimand for quitting a station so important that, should the enemy gain possession, not a mussulmaun could make his escape from the city." Daud treasured up his resentment at this treatment, and, being joined by other disaffected nobles, secretly plotted the assassination of the Sultan.
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