King Solomon: A Likely Story?

King Solomon and his Djinn

Let me tell you for a moment a story about my grandfather:

My grandfather had a field of workers.  One thing that grandpa loved to do was lean on his staff and watch over his workers as they worked in the field.  Sadly, one day while grandpa was leaning on his staff, he died.  

Grandpa died in an unlikely way.  Instead of falling over, he died fixed in a standing position leaning on his staff.  Because of this unlikely pose, his workers failed to notice that he died.  Days passed.  Grandpa’s body started to decompose and smell bad.  Yet nobody noticed.  Days turned to weeks, weeks turned to months.  Still, nobody noticed.

Seeing grandpa still leaning on his staff, his workers kept working in the field.  Day and night, they kept working.  Frantically so.  No one would even take a break.  It was a torment for the workers.  

One day, a termite started eating through his staff.  Finally, after a year of grandpa’s dead corpse being propped up by his staff, the staff broke and the corpse fell to the ground.  

Grandpa's workers immediately noticed that grandpa was gone.  They could finally stop working and end their painful torment.  Had only they learned of his passing earlier, they would certainly have not suffered like this.

What do you think of this story?  I have to tell you something. This is not actually a story about my grandfather. This is a story about King Solomon.  The workers aren’t ordinary workers. They are djinn (i.e. genies). Solomon had apparently enslaved them, having had forced them to do his bidding using the magical ring that he wore.  

This story is in the Quran:

Then, when We decreed (Solomon's) death, nothing showed them of his death except a little work of the earth, which kept (slowly) gnawing at his staff: so when he fell down, the Jinns saw plainly that if they had known the unseen, they would not have tarried in the humiliating Penalty (of their Task). Quran 34:14, Yusuf Ali

The Islamic commentary of Tafsir Jalalayn on Quran 34:14 supplies the details to the story:

And when We decreed for him, for Solomon, death, in other words, [when] he died — he remained supported against his staff an entire year, while the jinn continued to toil in hard labour as was customary, unaware of his death, until [finally] when a termite ate through his staff, he fell to the ground [and was seen to be] dead — nothing indicated to them that he had died except a termite (al-ard is the verbal noun from uridat al-khashaba, passive verbal form, in other words, ‘it [the piece of wood] was eaten away by a termite [al-arada]’) that gnawed away at his staff (read minsa’atahu or minsātahu, replacing the hamza with an alif, meaning a ‘staff’, so called because [when describing it one would say] yunsa’u bihā, to mean it is used to repel or drive away [creatures]’). And when he fell down, dead, the jinn realised, it became apparent to them, that (an, is softened, in other words, annahum) had they known the Unseen — comprising what was hidden from them in the way of Solomon being dead — they would not have continued in the humiliating chastisement, [in] that hard labour of theirs, [in which they continued] as they supposed him to be alive, ... Tafsir al-Jalalayn on 34:14

These details are corroborated by Islamic commentary of Tafsir Ibn Kathir on 34:14.

Could you really believe that, for about a year, no-one noticed that Solomon had died standing? None of his family members or servants or Solomon's officials? No-one in Solomon's kingdom noticed? Do you think that no one approached King Solomon to speak with him? If the Quran were the words of God, do you think it would contain such a folk tale?

This story is not in the Bible. In fact, the Bible has nothing to do with magic rings, magic staffs, armies of birds, angels who teaching black magic, or talking ants. All of these made it into the Quran, though. Please Muslim friends, come to the Bible. Come and read about what is real. The real Jesus, of whom it is said:

Simon Peter replied, “Lord, to whom would we go? You have the words of eternal life." John 6:68