Synthesis: Sūrat Ṣād 27–40

Triangulated across Ṭabarsī (Majmaʿ al-Bayān) [tabarsi_majma_al_bayan], al-Qummī [qummi], al-Ṭūsī (al-Tibyān) [tusi_al_tibyan], al-Baḥrānī (al-Burhān) [bahrani_al_burhan], al-Ṭabāṭabāʾī (al-Mīzān) [tabatabai_al_mizan], and the Enlightening Commentary [enlightening_commentary].

Human-review flags: al-Mīzān [tabatabai_al_mizan] is flagged needs_human_review — its two coarse units overrun the passage, so its out-of-passage David material (vv. 17–26) and David-only traditions section were faithfully condensed (never supplemented), while the vv. 27–29 and 30–40 expositions are rendered in full.

What the passage says. Two movements. First (27–29), creation is not bāṭil ("in vain"): a purposeless cosmos is "the assumption of those who disbelieve," and divine justice forbids equating believers/God-wary with corrupters/fujjār — hence a blessed Book sent down "that they may ponder (li-yaddabbarū) its verses." Second (30–40), Solomon: the parade of the noble steeds (al-ṣāfināt al-jiyād), his word that he loved "good things" over his Lord's remembrance until [the sun] "was concealed by the veil," his masḥ "of the shanks and necks," the jasad cast on his throne, his prayer for an incomparable kingdom, and the subjection of wind and devils.

Creation and the Book (27–29). Ṭabarsī [tabarsi_majma_al_bayan] and Ṭūsī [tusi_al_tibyan] read "in vain" as "without a wise purpose," each turning it against the mujbira (determinists) who make "every falsehood God's act." al-Ṭabāṭabāʾī [tabatabai_al_mizan] systematizes this into two proofs of the Return: from ends (term-bound creation must issue in something abiding, else it is bāṭil, impossible for the All-Wise) and from justice (the perfect and the deficient cannot share one end in a world whose material causes treat them alike). On 29 all three stress tadabbur; the Enlightening Commentary [enlightening_commentary] adds that contemplation must yield admonition lest knowledge breed pride. A Shīʿī taʾwīl appears in al-Qummī [qummi] and al-Burhān [bahrani_al_burhan]: "those who believe" is glossed as the Commander of the Faithful and his companions, the "corrupters/fujjār" as Ḥabtar, Zurayq and Dalām (polemical by-names) — al-Burhān adding the Badr identification (ʿAlī, Ḥamza, ʿUbayda vs. ʿUtba, Shayba, al-Walīd). These are rendered strictly as each source attributes them.

The horses and the masḥ (30–33). The sources split, each position given as-attributed. (a) The slaughter reading: al-Qummī [qummi] states flatly that Solomon "struck their necks and shanks with the sword until he slaughtered them all"; Ṭabarsī [tabarsi_majma_al_bayan] and Ṭūsī [tusi_al_tibyan] supply its lexical basis — masḥ = qaṭʿ (cutting), with Abū ʿUbayda's masaḥa ʿilāwatahu ("struck his neck"), externally web-confirmed — read as punishing the distraction or as sacrificing his dearest property in charity (Āl ʿImrān 3:92). (b) The affectionate wiping: Ibn ʿAbbās/al-Zuhrī (in Ṭabarsī, Ṭūsī) have him stroke their manes and hocks. (c) The ʿiṣma-defense / sun-return: ʿAlī, via Ibn ʿAbbās, brands Kaʿb's slaughter-and-stripping tale a lie — "the prophets of God do not commit wrong... they are infallible and purified" — reading ruddūhā as a command to the angels to return the sun for the lapsed prayer (so masḥ = his own ablution). al-Burhān [bahrani_al_burhan] carries this most fully: Ibn Bābawayh expressly rejects the slaughter ("the horses had no fault... they are beasts, not accountable") and adduces al-Ṣādiq's sound report, anchored by the al-Faqīh tradition that a prayer recalled is never "lost." al-Ṭabāṭabāʾī [tabatabai_al_mizan] prefers the sun-return account "if the wording supports it" (else the dedication reading), dismisses the slaughter reports as Kaʿb-derived, and insists Solomon was distracted by one act of worship from another, not by desire.

The throne-test (34–35). On the jasad, the Shīʿī sources converge in rejecting the demon-usurpation tale while differing on the alternative. Ṭabarsī [tabarsi_majma_al_bayan] and Ṭūsī [tusi_al_tibyan] catalogue the popular versions — the ring lost to a jinn (Ṣakhr, or "Āṣaf," or Khanfīq/Ḥayqīq) who impersonates Solomon — then repudiate them: "prophethood does not reside in a signet-ring," nor would God let a devil take a prophet's form and judge among His servants. Their alternatives: a stillborn child laid on the throne (the unspoken in shāʾa llāh), the child hidden in the clouds yet claimed by death (al-Shaʿbī, from al-Ṣādiq), or Solomon's own illness-wasted body. Strikingly, al-Qummī [qummi] and al-Burhān [bahrani_al_burhan] do narrate the full ring/Ṣakhr/Āṣaf-b.-Barakhyā cycle (impersonation, menstruation tell, fish, hoopoe dialogue) — as their own transmitted material, not asserted. al-Ṭabāṭabāʾī [tabatabai_al_mizan] reads the jasad as a dead child given to school Solomon in tafwīḍ, consigning the usurpation tale to "what the hands of forgery have played." On 35, Mūsā al-Kāẓim (in al-Burhān) glosses the "incomparable kingdom" as one manifestly God-given, not seized by force; al-Ṭabāṭabāʾī rebuts the miserliness charge — it requests a distinction, not another's deprivation.

The gift (36–40). All read rukhāʾ as the wind's gentle tractability (harmonized with its "tempestuous" description elsewhere), the devils as builders/divers and the rebellious in fetters, and "without reckoning" as inexhaustibility or freedom from accounting. al-Burhān [bahrani_al_burhan] extends "bestow or withhold" to the Prophet (Ḥashr 59:7), closing on Solomon's "nearness and excellent return."

Sources present: tabarsi_majma_al_bayan, qummi, tusi_al_tibyan, bahrani_al_burhan, tabatabai_al_mizan, enlightening_commentary; silent: (none)