Synthesis: Sūrat Ṣād 12–26

Triangulating Ṭabarsī (Majmaʿ al-Bayān), Qummī, Ṭūsī (al-Tibyān), Bahrānī (al-Burhān), al-Ṭabāṭabāʾī (al-Mīzān), and the published Enlightening Commentary.

Human-review flags: qummi, bahrani_al_burhan, and tabatabai_al_mizan are marked needs_human_review. Qummī and al-Burhān are narration-heavy with classical-name spelling variants (Ūriyā b. Ḥanān/Ḥayyān; the iron-tablet king Arwā b. Salama/Salm) preserved verbatim; al-Burhān's report [6] matn is condensed where it duplicates Qummī. al-Mīzān carries two coarse units (covers 1–16, 17–29); its out-of-passage stretches (vv.1–11 bayān, the sabab-al-nuzūl riwāyāt, the long 2 Samuel excerpt, the qiṣaṣ appendix) are faithfully condensed and bracketed, not expanded.

What the passage says. It closes the roll of destroyed confederates (vv.12–16) — Noah's people, ʿĀd, Pharaoh dhū l-awtād, Thamūd, Lot's people, the dwellers of the Wood — "those were the confederates," awaiting a single Shout with no respite (fawāq), yet mockingly begging their "portion" (qiṭṭ) hastened. Then it pivots to David (vv.17–26): dhū l-ayd and awwāb; the glorifying mountains and gathered birds; the strengthened kingdom with al-ḥikma and faṣl al-khiṭāb; the two litigants who scale the miḥrāb, the ewe-parable, David's hastened verdict and realization that he was tried (fatannāhu), his penitent prostration and forgiveness; and the khilāfa charge to judge by truth and not follow desire.

The lexical-grammatical layer. On dhū l-awtād all sources converge on a spread of glosses — Pharaoh's pegging-torture, his firm-staked dominion, his "structures," or his armies as "stakes of the kingdom" — Ṭabarsī [tabarsi_majma_al_bayan] giving five and the Enlightening Commentary [enlightening_commentary] adding the pyramids; al-Ṭabāṭabāʾī [tabatabai_al_mizan] lists them but says no proof settles any. On fawāq, Ṭabarsī and Ṭūsī [tusi_al_tibyan] detail the qirāʾa split (fuwāq/fawāq, Kūfans vs. rest) and the she-camel-milking etymology (respite/return), echoed by the EC. al-qiṭṭ is glossed as share or written record (Ṭabarsī, Ṭūsī, with the "records in the right/left hand" sabab). On faṣl al-khiṭāb, Ṭabarsī and Ṭūsī favor the judicial formula "the proof is on the claimant, the oath on the denier" (also "knowledge of judgment"); al-Ṭabāṭabāʾī weighs disentangling-of-disputes, measured speech, and the "ammā baʿd" tradition, preferring the judgment sense as the next verse confirms; al-Burhān [bahrani_al_burhan] preserves a distinctive al-Riḍā gloss equating it with "knowledge of [all] languages."

The David-fitna and ʿiṣma — rendered strictly as-attributed. Here the sources diverge sharply, and each position is reported as its own. Qummī and al-Burhān's report [6] (ʿAlī b. Ibrāhīm < … < al-Ṣādiq) carry the full Isrāʾīliyyāt narrative — the jeweled bird, David glimpsing Uriah's bathing wife, the letter sending Uriah to die before the Ark, the forty-day weeping repentance, Ḥizqīl, the grave of Uriah, and the marriage producing Solomon — without rejecting it; Qummī appends a discrepant Abū l-Jārūd report in which Uriah is recalled and dies naturally. But al-Burhān itself juxtaposes the rebuttal: reports [7]–[9], above all the famous al-Riḍā vs. Ibn al-Jahm majlis, where al-Riḍā strikes his forehead, denounces ascribing to a prophet "negligence of prayer, then indecency, then murder," and reframes David's sole fault as a breach of judicial protocol (rasm al-ḥukm) — ruling before hearing the defendant or demanding proof — while the Uriah marriage was simply the first lawful remarriage of a slain man's widow. Ṭabarsī reports the popular tale but brands it "beyond doubt corrupt," cites ʿAlī's vow to flog its teller two ḥadds (for qadhf and for prophethood), and records Abū Muslim's human-litigants reading. Ṭūsī likewise lists the "blame" opinions, declares the storytellers' (quṣṣāṣ) version "false and fabricated" and a worthless solitary report, and prefers the tark al-nadb (omission of the recommended) in judicial etiquette. al-Ṭabāṭabāʾī offers the most developed defense: the litigants were angels in tamaththul (representation, like a waking-vision) where no taklīf obtains, so David's "khaṭīʾa" parallels Adam's pre-descent lapse; he holds the tale is lifted from a Torah account "more hideous" than the Muslim versions, endorses Ṭabarsī's verdict, and even argues that ʿiṣma does not exempt the infallible from being addressed by command. The EC, by contrast, reads vv.21–25 plainly as David hastening judgment and repenting the haste, without the Uriah story.

The khilāfa (v.26). Ṭabarsī, Ṭūsī, and al-Ṭabāṭabāʾī read it as God's own vicegerency (cf. al-Baqara 30), grounding just rule in divine authority; al-Ṭabāṭabāʾī presses that the charge "judge by truth" shows the vicegerency is actualized, and the EC develops it into a religion-and-politics theme.

Sources present: tabarsi_majma_al_bayan, qummi, tusi_al_tibyan, bahrani_al_burhan, tabatabai_al_mizan, enlightening_commentary; silent: none.