Muslims believe that the Prophets of Allah (God) were gifted with the special grace of being called by Allah to deliver a message to His people, but they were, nonetheless, men.

The message they delivered was free from error, but their lives often showed many of the mistakes which ordinary people make.

King Solomon (peace be upon him) is just such a man. His life shows us that, just like us, when he had a special care for God and was obedient in His service, he prospered. And when he forgot about God and believed that he could do things on his own, his life seemed to fall apart.

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King Solomon (known as Prophet Suleiman to Muslims) is revered as a Prophet by Christians, Muslims, and Jews. This alone should make him worthy of our attention, that the world’s great “Abrahamic Faiths” have yet another focal point of shared belief.

Solomon’s great wisdom and vast wealth are described in the Old Testament. The “wisdom of Solomon” is famous the world over, as is his wealth. However, it is the description of Solomon which we find in the Quran that concerns us here.

Although the Jewish scriptures ascribe three books to Solomon (Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Songs), Muslims do not believe that he was given a book from Allah.

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So what do Muslims believe about Prophet Solomon and what does the story of his life teach all of us today, whether we are Muslim or not?

The main points about his life can be divided into three sections, which we will deal with in three different parts: Solomon as a king; Solomon’s visit by the Queen of Sheba; and Solomon’s extraordinary gift of being able to talk to animals and birds.

These last two are dealt with in great detail in the Quran, so there must surely be something special for us to learn from them.

Solomon as a King


In the first of these aspects of his life, though, Solomon as king, there is something for us to learn. Solomon, according to the Quran, was not only a Prophet of God, but also a king. He was also the son of a Prophet and a king, King David, whom he succeeded.

From an early age he showed great wisdom and understanding, just like the Christian Gospel of Saint Luke says that another Prophet, Jesus, (peace be upon him) was very wise, even as a boy, and instructed the doctors of the law in the Temple.

During his reign as king, Solomon ruled an area that stretched from what is modern Palestine, south towards what is now Yemen. He was, in fact, the last king of a united Israel. After his death, the kingdom was divided in two.

He was well loved and respected as a wise and fair-minded ruler. The kingdom prospered and acquired great wealth.

As king, though, his actions sometimes led him away from Allah, just as our own successes in life often take us away from God, since we feel we no longer need Him, because we are doing quite well on our own. It is only when things begin to go wrong, isn’t it, that we turn to God once again?

Solomon was most successful as a ruler and as a man when he was close to doing Allah’s will. He nearly lost his kingdom, though, when he began to believe in his own success, and it is only when he realized that obedience to Allah was the most important thing in his life that his kingdom was saved from destruction.

At the height of his worldly power, he began to be distracted:

Behold, there were brought before him, at eventide, coursers of the highest breeding, and swift of foot. And he said, “Truly do I prefer wealth to the remembrance of my Lord.” (38:31-2)

When he began to show interest in horses and the things of this world, instead of care for his people and devotion to his Lord, he lost part of his kingdom, having to fight off a rebellion from one of his governors.

In this period, Solomon lost many battles, and at one stage, even the capital of the kingdom, Jerusalem, was captured by the enemy.

There is a very lovely verse in the Quran which describes the effect of this episode on Solomon’s life:

And We did try Solomon; We placed on his throne a body but he did turn (to Us in true devotion). (38:34)

Without the might and power of Allah to hold him up, it is as though the king sitting on the throne was just an empty, lifeless body. This was a turning point in Solomon’s life and he regained the sense of service to Allah which he had lost.

With renewed dedication, he seemed like a new man and later regained the lost territories, after he re-discovered his faith and once more dedicated his life to the service of Allah.

It was during this phase that Solomon built a magnificent temple to the glory of Allah, which has become synonymous with his very name. Solomon’s temple is a byword for magnificence.

For Love of Horses


In this first part of the story of Prophet Solomon, then, we can learn to be on guard against our own weaknesses lest they should become our downfall.

Solomon’s weakness was in the love of horses (coursers of the highest breeding). It was they that drove him to distraction. The Quran describes it like this:

And he said, “Truly do I prefer wealth to the remembrance of my Lord.” Until (the sun) was hidden in the veil (of Night): “Bring them back to me.” Then began he to pass his hand over (their) legs and their necks. (38:32-3)

So it is that in this world whole careers are destroyed by a love for gambling or for alcohol. Like all the prophets, we are only mortal and we need to be on our guard against our own faults and failings.

When we understand ourselves well, we are halfway there to overcoming these faults. The other half is to do what Solomon did and recognize that only in God can we find our real happiness and life’s success.

In the next two parts of this account of Prophet Solomon’s life we shall look at the extraordinary gift he had of being able to talk to animals and birds and hold sway over the forces of nature.

And we shall see how his piety and good conduct were able to bring even the Queen of Sheba to turn away from sun-worship and to declare her belief in the Oneness of God.

In doing so, we will also try to draw some conclusions about our own lives and how we, like Solomon, can achieve extraordinary things if we allow a place for God in our lives.


The Story of Solomon and the Queen of Sheba

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Idris Tawfiq


26 May, 2022


In the first part of our account of the life of Prophet Solomon (known as Suleiman to Muslims) we described how there are three facets of his life which can teach us something today.

The first facet, which we dealt with last time, was his career as a king, and we showed that even though Solomon was called to be both a Prophet of God and the last king of a unified Israel, he was, like all of us, just a man and had all the weaknesses which we are all subject to.

His love of horses was almost his downfall, since it distracted him from his service to God.

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However, Solomon was able to re-find the still, small voice within him which called him to be God’s servant, and he was able to regain the parts of his kingdom which were lost.

The next facet of Solomon’s life was his extraordinary gift of being able to communicate with animals and birds and be able to control the forces of nature. This will be the focus of the third part of our story.

In this part, we will look at the third facet of the story of Solomon (peace be upon him), which is the very famous story of the visit to Solomon by the Queen of Sheba, and see what that story can teach us today.

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Solomon had a very large army of men, jinn, and birds (Muslims believe that jinn are created beings, both good and bad, that we cannot see).

One day, he was reviewing this army when he noted that the hoopoe bird was absent without permission. It was the job of the hoopoe to look for water when the army needed it.

The bird had been traveling in the country of Saba (Sheba), which is in modern-day Yemen, and it returned and declared to Solomon:

I come to you from Sheba with sure news. I found a woman ruling over the people, she has been given many blessings and has a mighty throne! I found her and her people worshiping the sun instead of Allah… (27:22-4)

Solomon was a deeply religious man and was distressed that a whole people should be lost in worshiping the sun, rather than the One God who created it.

He decided to send a message to the Queen, whose name was Bilqis, inviting her and her people to worship God:

Allah! – there is no god but He! – Lord of the Throne supreme! (Solomon) said: “Soon shall we see whether thou hast told the truth or lied! Go thou, with this letter of mine, and deliver it to them… (27:26-7)

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Bilqis, too, was a wise ruler and when she received the letter, she was suspicious that Solomon really wanted to control her territory.

She decided to send him gifts and to see what his reaction to her splendid gifts would be. In this way, she would know if Solomon was only really interested in wealth.

Bilqis was impressed by Solomon’s reaction. Not only was he not interested in her gifts of gold and jewels, but he was actually quite offended to receive them. The belief in God was better to him than precious jewels:

Will ye give me abundance in wealth? But that which Allah has given me is better than that which He has given you!… (27:36)

The Queen of Sheba decided to travel to Solomon to see with her own eyes the one who had sent a message to her. Traveling a long distance with her courtiers, she eventually arrived at the court of Solomon.

Bilqis was known to have a magnificent throne, and one of the jinn offered to Solomon to bring this throne before he could have time to stand up. Another wise man at the court offered to bring the throne to him within the blinking of an eye, and sure enough the throne of Sheba was transported to him, so that it was waiting for her, in disguise, when she arrived:

So when she arrived, she was asked, “Is this thy throne?” She said, “It seems the same. And knowledge was bestowed on us in advance of this, and we have submitted to Allah (in Islam).” (27:42)

Having recognized her throne and recognized, also, the wisdom of Solomon, Bilqis entered the magnificent palace.

Its floor was made of shimmering glass, which shined like water, and the queen, thinking it to be real water, lifted her skirts so that she would not get wet, which must have been very undignified for a queen, especially when Solomon told her:

…This is but a palace paved smooth with slabs of glass.. (27:44)

The story of the Queen of Sheba’s visit to Solomon has a very beautiful ending. The queen declares:

O my Lord! I have indeed wronged my soul: I do (now) submit (in Islam), with Solomon, to the Lord of the Worlds. (27:44)

Lessons from the Story


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This story is told in great detail in the Quran, which surely tells us that it is important and that it has something to teach. So what, then, can we learn from the story of Solomon and the Queen of Sheba?

Well, first of all, we note the queen’s reaction when she is first told about Islam she suspects a trick. When the messenger arrives with the message of Solomon, she doubts the true intentions of Solomon. Surely, she thinks, no one can be telling me about God just for my own sake.

There must be a hidden agenda. Isn’t that the reaction some of us have when we hear the words of God being spoken? “Why are they inviting me to learn about Islam? What are they really after?”

In a world given over to greed and acquiring more, often at the expense of someone else, it seems rather odd that people would invite us to learn about Islam for no other reason than for the sake of conveying the message.

And yet, Prophet Solomon’s invitation had no ulterior motive. He only wanted what was best for Bilqis. And what was best for her was to abandon the worship of the sun and the moon and the stars and to worship, instead, the One who created the heavens and the earth and everything in between.

Another lesson from this story is the reaction of Solomon to being offered gifts. What use are gold and jewels to him, he says, when he has been given everything he could want by believing in God? This might seem strange to those who are not Muslim, but for the devout Muslim, the sincere believer, the gift of Islam is greater than any amount of gold and silver.

And finally, the response of the Queen of Sheba to all of this is quite simple: she submits to God and to Islam. “Islam” is an Arabic word which comes from a root word meaning both “peace” and “submission.”

Bilqis finds peace in her heart when she submits to God. It is such a simple thing to do, yet for many, it is one of the most difficult. The story of the visit to Solomon by the Queen of Sheba is meant to teach us that submitting to God is richer than silver or gold, and better than splendor or wealth.

In the final part of this account of the life of Prophet Solomon (peace be upon him) we shall see how he was gifted with the ability to talk to animals and birds and we shall see what that message can teach us today.