Tafheem ul Quran

Surah 27 An-Naml, Ayat 42-42

فَلَمَّا جَآءَتۡ قِيۡلَ اَهٰكَذَا عَرۡشُكِ​ؕ قَالَتۡ كَاَنَّهٗ هُوَ​ۚ وَاُوۡتِيۡنَا الۡعِلۡمَ مِنۡ قَبۡلِهَا وَ كُنَّا مُسۡلِمِيۡنَ‏ ﴿27:42﴾

(27:42) When the Queen arrived, she was asked: "Is your throne like this one?" She said: "It seems as if it is the same.52 We had already come to know this and we had submitted ourselves."53


Notes

52. This also refutes the speculations of those people who depict the event in a manner as though the Prophet Solomon (peace be upon him) wanted to have a throne made for the queen and for this purpose he invited tenders and a strong robust artisan offered to make him a throne in the matter of a few hours, but an expert craftsman submitted that he could make and produce it in no time. This whole guess-work is destroyed by the tact that Solomon (peace be upon him) himself ordered the throne to be fetched before him (Ayat 38), and when it had been fetched, ordered his servants to set it before the queen casually (Ayat 41), and then when she arrived, she was asked whether her throne was like that (Ayat 42), and she answered, “(It is) as though it were the very one.” Obviously, there could he no room for the absurd interpretations in the face of such a clear statement of facts. If there is still any doubt left, it can be satisfied by the next sentence.

53. That is, “Even before we saw this miracle, we had been convinced by what we had heard of Solomon (peace be upon him) that he was a Prophet of Allah, and not merely a ruler of a kingdom.” After seeing the throne and saying, “(It is) as though it were the very one”, what could be the relevance of adding this sentence if it is supposed that the Prophet Solomon (peace be upon him) had gotten a throne manufactured and set the same before her? Even if it is assumed that no effort was spared to have a throne manufactured closely resembling that of queen’s throne, what could have made a sun-worshiping queen exclaim “We had already known this and we had become Muslims!”