{"collection":"Texts of Islam","full_text_available":false,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/sacred_texts_v1_isl_bkt_bkt11_htm/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/sacred_texts_v1_isl_bkt_bkt11_htm","id":"sacred_texts_v1_isl_bkt_bkt11_htm","license":"unknown_pending_legal_review","rights_basis":"sacred_texts_v1_preview_gate_primary_text_only; acquisition-method/ToS and compilation-copyright questions still open, not resolved by this gate","source":"sacred_texts_v1","source_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/isl/bkt/bkt11.htm","summary":"This is a piece of Islamic legendary prose \u2014 part of the vast tradition of Solomon (Suleiman) folk narratives \u2014 presenting the biblical king as a prophet-ruler endowed by Allah with supernatural dominion over winds, animals, earth and sea, and the spirit world. The narrative's organizing device is a sequence of angelic visitations in which Solomon receives four jeweled stones, each inscribed with an Islamic declaration, that collectively grant him command over the natural and supernatural orders. A distinctive section catalogs the moral meanings of birdsong \u2014 each species utters a proverb when translated into human speech \u2014 reflecting a wisdom-literature tradition that uses nature as a vehicle for Islamic ethical instruction. Solomon then subjugates the djinn, putting male demons to work building the Temple and female ones to domestic labor, and attempts (and fails) to feed all the creatures of the sea, a humbling episode in which Allah demonstrates that divine creation exceeds any mortal king's capacity to comprehend or sustain it. The text closes mid-scene on Solomon's capture of Sachr, a uniquely powerful demon who escaped his earlier mass subjugation and whose secret knowledge is needed to build the Temple without noise. Its most distinctive claim is its thoroughgoing Islamization of Solomon: the inscriptions cite the shahada, the story assumes Islamic cosmology and prayer ritual, and Solomon's greatness is consistently framed as derivative of and subordinate to Allah's incomparably greater sovereignty.","tags":[],"text":null,"title":"SOLOMON AND THE QUEEN OF SABA.","tradition":"Texts of Islam","translated_text":null,"word_count":11188}