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Dâniâl (Daniel) (PUH)
They say that he was an orphan and had no mother or father and grown up with an old woman from the Israelites, and he was captivated by Nebuchadnezzar as well as `Uzair (Ezra), and God made them safe away from this tyrant's punishment and torture, and he (Daniel) died some where near Shush, and seems it is a village behind the river, and the river of Shâsh is a well-known river like Tigris and Euphrates and the Nile as they said. When Nebuchadnezzar captured Daniel and kept him for a while, many things happened about him and people knew him by his virtues and they gathered around him to listen to his sermons to guide them to their happiness, and so then Nebuchadnezzar got afraid because of him and he kept him in a pit like a well and he kept with him a lioness that got milk, and all that long time in that pit he used to drink her milk and this is what kept him alive and she used to eat from the mud of the pit, and he stayed like this for long time until he got annoyed of it and got even weaker, so he then prayed to God to make a relief for him. Then God inspired to the prophet that was in Jerusalem and God sent him there after the leaving of Nebuchadnezzar, so God inspired to him to take the food and the drink to Daniel and tell him My greets, and the prophet asked: and where is he O Lord? so He answered him: you will find him in the well of Babylon, and then the prophet came to him and saw him in the well and said to him: O Daniel, and he answered: yes, O strange voice, and he said to him: your Lord greets you and He sent to you this food and drink, and so he hanged it down for him and then Daniel said: thanks be to God who never forgets who mentions Him, thanks be to God who never disappoints who prayed to Him, thanks be to God who is enough for who depends on Him, thanks be to God who never delivers to another who trusted Him, thanks be to God who gives goodness in exchange of goodness, thanks be to God who gives triumph by patience, thanks be to God who gives a relief after our adversities, thanks be to God who is our Trust when we have no tricks to do, thanks be to God who is our hope when we doubt about our works..etc. Then at that night, after the pray of Daniel, Nebuchadnezzar saw in his dream that his head was made of iron and his legs were made of copper and his chest was made of gold, and then he called out for the priests and the astrologers and asked them: what did I see in my dream? They answered: we don't know, but tell us what you saw in your dream, and he said to them: I give you the money for a long time and you can't tell what I had in my dream, and he ordered to kill them all, and someone who was attending in his court said to him: if anyone had something, then that would be the man of the well because the lioness never stopped feeding him and she is giving him milk while she eats the mud, and so then he ordered to bring Daniel (PUH) and he asked him: what did I see in my dream? He answered: you saw that your head is made of iron and your legs are made of copper and your chest is made of gold, and then he said: yes this is what I saw so what is this? Then said Daniel to him: your kingdom is to begone and you are to be killed after three days and a man from Persia shall kill you, and then Nebuchadnezzar said: I have seven cities and for every city there are guards, and even I'm not satisfied with those so I put up a duck made of copper on the gates of every city so that whenever a stranger goes in it shall shout and he would be taken, and then said Daniel to him: the matter is what I told you.
Then he sent the knights to the borders of his cities and said to them: whoever passes you by kill him, and Daniel was sitting with him so he said to him: don't leave me for three days and when they are passed I shall kill you, and when it was the third day he got sad and saw a kid that he used to take as a son and he was a persian but he didn't know that he was from Persia, so he gave him his sword and said to him: O kid, whoever you find in your way then kill him and if you found me kill me then, so then the kid took the sword and struck his head with it and killed him [this story is different from the one told in Torah, and the one in Torah is another famous version among Shiites as well with some difference]. It is narrated that once Daniel wanted to pass over a river so he gave the boatman a piece of bread so that he would transport him, but he didn't accept that and said: what shall I do with it and bread is to be stepped upon by the legs for us? and when Daniel saw that from him he raised his hands to the sky and said: O Lord be victorious for the bread for You saw, O Lord, what this slave made and what did he say about the bread, and then God inspired to the sky to hold the rains and inspired to the earth and it turned like clay and didn't plant anything until they began to eat each other and the story about this is long, and then God had mercy upon them by the prays of Daniel and then the sky rained over the earth and earth planted and goodness started to show and they got back to what they used to by the blessings of Daniel, and it is given to Daniel that he shall judge between people in the after-life and he was during his childhood an owner of wisdom.
It is narrated in a long story that he was standing and watching some children playing in the road and among them there was a child that they called Mât Al-Deen [religion is dead] so he stepped towards him and asked him about his name and he said: my name is Mât Al-Deen, and then he asked about his father and he said: he is dead, and then he asked about his mother and he said that she's alive and he took him and went to her in her home and he asked her about the name of her son, and she said to him: his name is Mât Al-Deen, and then he asked her: who named with such name? She said then: his father, he went away with some people for some trade and then they got back but he didn't come back with them and they told me that he is dead, and then I asked them about his fortune and money and they said that he didn't leave anything back, and then I asked them if he did say anything to you? they said: yes he claimed that your are pregnant so he said: tell her that either she got a male or a female let her name it Mât Al-Deen, and then Daniel asked her about his companions whether they are alive or not, and she said they are all alive, and then he gathered them all together and got help from the guards to do so and then he separated them and asked about the man and they said he is dead, and then he started to ask them one by one about the time of his death and about his sickness and who used to take care of him and who washed his body and who prayed over his body and buried him and in what land he was buried and whether there were other people attending all of that.
In general, they all differed severely in their answers, and then they admitted that they killed him and divided his money among them, so the man's blood was taken over them and he took from them the charge of crime and gave it to the man's family and took also all of his money, all of that by his own wisdom and by his art and his ways that no one would be able to do except of someone like him as he is one of the viceroys, and he gave all of that to the man's family and then said to the mother: name your son `Âsh Al-Deen [religion is living] and so she did. For Daniel there are many more miracles and virtues and have nothing alike them except from viceroys like him may peace be upon him and them and the blessings of God.
 


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