Ep. 08 (Final): Prophet Suleiman’s (AS) Wisdom | The History of Al Quds

Allah (SWT) granted Dawud (AS) a great deal of knowledge, power, authority, wisdom, and additionally, divine revelation. He also started some work on the construction of Bayt Al-Maqdis. Some narrations mention that he had started constructing the frame of what would be the masjid of Bayt Al-Maqdis, but then Allah (SWT) told him that he was not destined to do this work, but rather, it will be done by his son, Sulayman. And so, Sulayman comes into the picture. [“We bestowed upon David (an illustrious son), Solomon. How excellent a servant (of Ours he was)! Indeed, he constantly turned to Us in devotion.” Surah Sad: 30] Sulayman (AS) became the successor of Dawud (AS), and Allah (AWJ) gave Sulayman (AS) knowledge and wisdom and also gave him authority, so he was the second person to be a king and a prophet.

Now, from a very young age, the wisdom of Sulayman (AS) started becoming apparent. Decisions would be made by Dawud (AS) and sometimes, when Sulayman (AS) was present, he would give his view, or when Sulayman (AS) learnt of it, he would give his input into that view and Dawud (AS) would give the ruling based on what his son was saying. Like the example in the Qur’an, that there were a group of people who had a dispute; two parties, and the dispute was that one party’s animals, their sheep, had gone into another party’s property and ate from all the vineyards. [“We bestowed the same favour upon David and Solomon. Recall, when they gave judgement regarding a tillage into which the sheep of some people had strayed at night, and We were witnesses to their judgement.” Surah Al-Anbiya: 78] Dawud (AS) ordered the owners of the animals to pay for the damages done. Some narrations mention that Dawud (AS) ruled that these sheep now be given over to those whose lands were destroyed to compensate for their loss. In any case, Dawud (AS) gave the judgement that these people needed to be compensated. When Sulayman (AS) learnt of this, he offered his input. He said, “If the decision was in my hands, I would have done this. I would have given the sheep over to the vineyard owners to benefit from; they could benefit from their milk and offspring as long as they had them, and during this time, the people who owned the sheep would have to repair the land itself; and once the land was repaired, once the plantation was rectified, then these sheep would be returned back to their owners, and the people of the land would have their orchard as it was before.” Allah (SWT) liked this judgement and ruling of Sulayman, and he says, [“We guided Solomon to the right verdict, and We had granted each of them judgement and knowledge. We made the mountains and the birds celebrate the praise of Allah with David. It was We Who did all this.” Surah Al-Anbiya: 79] “We made Sulayman understand it, even though both had authority and wisdom and both had knowledge”. In another example, there was a dispute over a child, where two women came and each one of them claimed that the baby was theirs, so after listening to each one’s version of the story, Sulayman (AS) said, “Here’s what I’m going to do; I am going to take this baby and cut it into half, and each of you will get half, because it’s your word against hers, and yours against hers, and it is unclear which is correct.” So, then, the one who was the rightful mother of the child said, “No, give it to her then, it’s her child. I cannot let this happen.” Sulayman instead gave it to her. He understood that if this were to happen with anyone’s child, a true mother might sacrifice the custody of her child, but not the life of her child. So when the woman said this, and said give it to the other woman, he understood that the one pleading to give the other the child was the mother and she did not want anything to happen to her child.

Sulayman now takes over the legacy of Dawud (AS). He is the king and he engages very actively in the construction of Bayt Al-Maqdis. The Qur’an describes this and Allah (SWT) supported Sulayman (AS) by giving him not only the control and ability to speak with animals, but he also gave him control over the jinns. [“They made for him whatever he would desire; stately buildings, images, basins like water-troughs and huge, built-in-cauldrons: ‘Work, O house of David, in thankfulness (to your Lord). Few of My servants are truly thankful.’” Surah Saba: 13] They would construct structures specifically for worship, so the various parts of the masjid, monuments of different types, massive cauldrons, possibly for the sake of feeding people so big that they could be compared to valleys, and large fountains and reservoirs for water. Sulayman (AS) has some jinns that are doing other tasks for him as well; [“And We also subjected the devils to him all kinds of builders and divers;” Surah Sad: 37 “and others that were bound with chains” Surah Sad: 38] So there were those who were working for them willingly, who were given responsibilities such as construction, and other jinns would be given responsibility to plunge into the depth of the waters, the oceans, and search for jewels or pearls, and then there were some jinns who were not compliant, and who were chained up.

Another interesting turn of events occurred in the time of Sulayman (AS) related to jinns. People had started using jinns to find out news of the unseen. Soothsayers and fortune tellers would try to get the jinns to go and listen to the decisions that were being passed down in the heavens; the jinns would hear a word here or there and come back and tell the fortune tellers; the fortune tellers would add a story to it and relay it as if they had knowledge of the unseen. Similarly, magic and sorcery became predominant at that time, and people started viewing magicians and sorcerers as sacred personalities and holy people, and in some ways, they thought that they were more authoritative than the prophets (AS). They thought that through jinns, they could get a lot of things done; and most of these things that they wanted to get done were harmful or hurtful, such as breaking up marriages, hurting people or causing damages to someone. Sulayman (AS) took very aggressive steps against this and wherever there were magical spells that were being created and performed, he had them confiscated and he had them buried. So, a lot of the jinns were unhappy with him, and the sorcerers also did not like him, but these were steps Sulayman (AS) took to remove this element from society. There is a very lengthy to be had in relation to magic and sorcery; its ahkam, does it even exist? What are its various types? How is it practiced? How does one even protect oneself? There is a whole discussion about that, but we are talking about Sulayman (AS)’s role as the ultimate administrator and ruler of the land. These are some of the things that he had to look after, and you will find wherever the story of Sulayman (AS) is mentioned in the Qur’an, there will be some mention of jinns there. He had control over jinns, he put an end to the mischievous jinns, he had a lot of them tied or chained up, and of course there is the famous story of Sulayman (AS) and Bilqis. Now, I mentioned in the beginning of this series that Allah (SWT) had given Sulayman (AS) power over the winds, and these winds would help him travel over a distance that it would a month to cover. He would cover that in just one morning or evening. In the books of tafsir it is mentioned that he would travel from Damascus all the way to Istakhr, which is in Persia, he would travel to Cabul, all of this in one day, and his movements would be very swift.

Some Mufassireen, like Ibn Kathir, say that this gift of having control over the wind was given to him when he made a particular sacrifice. What was that sacrifice? One day, while he was out inspecting the horses of his army, the time of Asr almost ended, and so he was very upset, and he said, “My attachment to these horses distracted me from my duty to Allah (SWT).” [“(He ordered): ‘Bring these horses back to me,’ and then he began to gently stroke their shanks and necks.” Surah Sad: 33] Now, some narrations say that Sulayman slaughtered all of the horses and wiped the blood from his blade on their manes, but other Mufassireen like Ibn Jarir Al-Tabari hold the view that he did not slaughter the horses, but instead he made them run and gallop for him until they broke out into a sweat and wiped them down gently. Ibn Kathir says that they were in fact slaughtered by Sulayman (AS) as a display of his regret and remorse for becoming distracted from salah, and so anything that came between him and his salah, he wanted to show Allah (SWT) that he was willing to sacrifice it for the sake of Allah (SWT). When he did this, Allah (AWJ) gave him control over the winds.

The famous story between Sulayman (AS) and Bilqis is a lengthy story, so we will not too far into it, but it does give us a glimpse of Sulayman (AS)’s rulership and the way he ran his kingdom. It was not limited to just Bayt Al-Maqdis and Sham, but he had reign over other lands as well, and the fact that the queen of Saba came to Yemen to submit to Sulayman (AS) and all of the miraculous events that happened during this incident, whether it is the one who comes and conveys the messages and delivers the letter of Sulayman or it is the bringing of the massive throne of Bilqis to Sulayman (AS) or it is the construction of the palace made entirely of glass which dazzles and startles Bilqis, or it’s the fact that she submits to Sulayman (AS) along with all her people; all of this gives us insight into what kind of ruler Sulayman (AS) was. It is obvious and apparent that, with such an extensive kingdom, he was doing a lot of things, and was carrying on the legacy of Dawud (AS) which not only allowed him to secure order over those parts of the world but he also used it as a means of conveying the message of Allah (SWT) and bringing people from around the world to him.