Two brothers came to Prophet Daud (peace be upon him) (Prophet David in Bible) and said

“Judge between us, we are in dispute”.

One of them said

“This is my brother. He has ninety nine sheep and I have one sheep. He is now forcing me to give up my single sheep to him”.

So, prophet Daud without listening to the other brother said

“He has undoubtedly wronged you in demanding to add your single sheep to his flock. He should return your sheep to you!”.

Once he has delivered his judgment, two brothers disappeared into the air. Propet Daud realized that these were two angels and that he was just tested by God and that he made a mistake — he didn’t listen to both sides of the story before delivering his judgment.

So, he fell prostrating asking for forgiveness from God. And God forgave him. (Quran 38:21-25)

When mufassireen (interpreters) of Quran talk about this story they say that Daud after the mistake was a better Daud than before the mistake. In other words, after the mistake he was wiser and more knowledgeable than before.

Moral of the story:

Mistakes can be a great source of knowledge if we derive lessons from them, and learn from them.

About a month ago, problogger posted a blog-post on his blog asking readers “What is the biggest mistake you have made as a blogger?“. I am not sure if you have read this post and comments under it. There are over 200 comments where readers share their mistakes as a blogger and how their mistakes affected their blog negatively (directly or indirectly).

So, if you haven’t read it, go to the page and go through the comments. There are a lot of lessons to be learnt for everyone.