Salaam.
After a pause, let me now go back, and deal with some of the remaining backlog.
Meaning, for example, your oft-repeated remark, as to how else can we explain the choice of a camel, and its turn to drink water, other than, that, Tyrants were appropriating the scarce and most precious - gift of God to All Mankind - to themselves and their sycophants, thus preventing the masses from their equal share in God's freely given bounty.
After fully agreeing, that, in public water holes everyone has a right to water, I humbly beg to submit another explanation to God's choice of only a single camel and appointing its turn to drink water.
First of all, if it were primarily a question of forcibly preventing the common folk to water their camels, God's ultimatum could have been to stop such discrimination, lest a calamity befall them! This is simple and straight forward, and eliminates the ubiquitous Camel-Symbolism altogether.
Even today, wherever water is not over-abundant, people's life, especially in villages, and I am witness - for, I have been moving my residence too often, from city to village, and vice verse since more than three decades now - people's life, both physically, and emotionally, revolves round the village bore-well. Traditional private and public wells have all dried up.
Almost every day, there is some skirmish or the other at the bore-well, in my village.
Even as this thread was progressing, there have been at least three major showdowns.
Among them was the episode of one impatient boy in his late teens, caught, and beaten up by about ten women!!
Today, again, four sturdy men beat up another impatient, well-built man!
A somewhat similar-or-not-thing we have also noted in the episode of Moses and the young women at the water-hole.
But there is neither a Women's Lib, nor any Tyrant or American or Indian capitalist around here.
In short, a feasible argument can be this:
A water hole is a universal testing ground to gauge the patience and stability of folks.
This explains it's selection for the Divine Test.
Another point is regarding the condemnation of Capitalism, on the plea that it is based on surplus wealth.
How can any business, big or small, make any progress, without capital? A small farmer saves money in small amounts regularly in order to buy a pair of bullocks, or a pregnant cow. Similarly, a big businessman collects money to expand his business, and regularly saves large amounts in banks. Terms like Capitalism, Communism, etc have many definitions. Let us be wary of using them.
Amassing, and saving are two different things, just like eating, and devouring are.
Everybody condemns amassing of wealth, and devouring of food.
Not so, saving, and eating.
Regards,
A. Ismail Sait.