Ṣād

فَسَخَّرْنَا له الرّ‌ِيحَ تَجْرِي بِأَمْرِه رُخَآءً حَيْثُ أَصَابَ

وَالشَّيَاطِينَ كُلَّ بَنَّآءٍ وَغَوَّاصٍ

وَءَاخَرِينَ مُقَرَّنِينَ فِي الأَصْفَادِ

هَذَا عَطَآؤُنَا فَامْنُنْ أَوْ أَمْسِكْ بِغَيْرِ حِسَابٍ

وَإِنَّ لَهُ عِندَنَا لَزُلْفَي وَحُسْنَ مَأَبٍ

36. “So We made subservient unto him the wind; that it ran at his command, softly, wherever he desired,”

37. “And the Satans, every builder and diver,”

38. “And others (of the Satans) fettered in chains.”

39. “(We said:) ‘This is Our free gift, therefore bestow or withhold without reckoning.”

40. “And verily for him unto Us is a nearness and an excellent resort.”

In these verses, Allah points to the favours He had given to Solomon (as), among them are the wind made subservient to him, his taking benefit from the power of the jinn, controlling the destructive powers, and having the authority and the rank of nearness to Allah with a bright future. These bounties are a part of the sample government that Solomon had asked for. So this verse hints to another merit that Allah had bestowed on Solomon (as). The verse says:

He was also given the act of controlling the disobedient beings for performing some positive activities, as the second verse announces:

Allah made them subservient to him so that a group of them would accomplish every building he desired in the land, and a group of them would work in the sea. Thus Allah gave Solomon some ready-made powers for some positive actions, and made the Satans, whose nature is to be disobedient and rebellious, so subservient to him that they worked for him in buildings on the land and extraction of precious things from mines. Not only in this verse, but also in some other numerous verses of the Qur’an this meaning has been pointed out that Satans were made subservient to Solomon and they did some positive activities for him. In these verses as well as Surah An-Naba’, No. 78, verse 82 the word ‘Satans’ has been used while in Surah Saba, No. 34, verse 12 they have been called ‘Jinn’.

As we have also said before, jinn is a being which is concealed to us, but it has intellect, understanding, and power. They are also divided into believers and disbelievers. It does not matter that under the command of Allah they should be used by a divine prophet and be busy in some useful jobs. This probability exists, too, that the Qur’anic word ‘Satans’ has a vast meaning which encompasses both the rebellious human beings and other than them, and this vast meaning for Satan has been used in the Qur’an³. Thus, Allah gave such a power to Solomon that he could make all rebellious ones submit.

In the next verse, another merit of Allah to Solomon is mentioned that he controlled a group of the destructive forces, because, in any case, there were some members among Satans who were not counted as a useful and constructive power, and there was no way save that they should be in fetter in order that the society could be in security from their vice, as the Qur’an says:

The Qur’anic term /muqarranin/ is derived from /qarana/ in the sense of ‘resistance’ and nearness, and here it points to the act of putting hand and foot or neck in chain and fetter. The Arabic word /’asfad/ is the plural form of /safad/ in the sense of chain and fetter, (like the fetters put on the hands and feet of prisoners). Some commentators have rendered the Qur’anic phrase: /muqarranina-fil-’asfad/ into a complete yoke and it has been a chain which fastened the hands on the neck.

This fits to the concept of the Qur’anic term /muqarranin/ which contains the meaning of ‘nearness’. The fourth merit of Allah to Solomon was the abundant abilities he had and they let him to give or restrain things, as the next verse says:

The application of the phrase ‘without reckoning’ refers either to this that: for the sake of the rank of your justice Allah has given you a vast authority which will not be reckoned or asked about; or it is in the sense that the Divine bestowal on you is so much that whatever you grant it will not be counted in it. Some commentators have considered this meaning only related to the fettered Satans, meaning that whoever you desire you may let him go, and whomever you want you may keep in fetter.

In the fourth verse, the fifth and the last merit that Allah had given to Solomon is referred to. It was his spiritual rank that Allah had bestowed on Solomon because of his eligibilities. In this verse, Allah says:

This sentence, in fact, is an answer to those who, following to what is mentioned in the present Torah, polluted the sacred realm of this great prophet by kinds of undue and superstitious attributes. And, thus, it counts him free from all these wrong accusations, and honours his position with Allah, specially with the holy phrase: ‘an excellent resort’. A tradition from the holy Prophet (S) indicates he said:

“Have you heard that how much of property and government Allah gave Solomon, the son of David? Yet, with all these merits, it did not increase in him (anything) except to his humility, in a manner that because of intense humility and discipline he did not look at the sky because of humility for his Lord.” ⁴

Footnotes

1. 3. Surah Al-’An‘am, No. 6, verse 112
2. 4. Rauh-ul-Bayan, the commentary, Vol. 8, P. 39