قَالَتْ يَٰٓأَيُّهَا ٱلْمَلَؤُا۟ أَفْتُونِى فِىٓ أَمْرِى مَا كُنتُ قَاطِعَةً أَمْرًا حَتَّىٰ تَشْهَدُونِ
She said, ‘O [members of the] elite! Give me your opinion concerning my matter. I do not decide any matter until you are present.’
قَالُوا۟ نَحْنُ أُو۟لُوا۟ قُوَّةٍۢ وَأُو۟لُوا۟ بَأْسٍۢ شَدِيدٍۢ وَٱلْأَمْرُ إِلَيْكِ فَٱنظُرِى مَاذَا تَأْمُرِينَ
They said, ‘We are powerful and possess a great might. But it is up to you to command. So consider what orders you will give.’
قَالَتْ إِنَّ ٱلْمُلُوكَ إِذَا دَخَلُوا۟ قَرْيَةً أَفْسَدُوهَا وَجَعَلُوٓا۟ أَعِزَّةَ أَهْلِهَآ أَذِلَّةًۭ ۖ وَكَذَٰلِكَ يَفْعَلُونَ
She said, ‘Indeed when kings enter a town, they devastate it, and make the mightiest of its people the weakest. That is how they act.
وَإِنِّى مُرْسِلَةٌ إِلَيْهِم بِهَدِيَّةٍۢ فَنَاظِرَةٌۢ بِمَ يَرْجِعُ ٱلْمُرْسَلُونَ
I will send them a gift, and see what the envoys bring back.’
فَلَمَّا جَآءَ سُلَيْمَٰنَ قَالَ أَتُمِدُّونَنِ بِمَالٍۢ فَمَآ ءَاتَىٰنِۦَ ٱللَّهُ خَيْرٌۭ مِّمَّآ ءَاتَىٰكُم بَلْ أَنتُم بِهَدِيَّتِكُمْ تَفْرَحُونَ
So when he came to Solomon, he said, ‘Are you aiding me with wealth? What Allah has given me is better than what He has given you. Indeed, you are proud of your gift!
ٱرْجِعْ إِلَيْهِمْ فَلَنَأْتِيَنَّهُم بِجُنُودٍۢ لَّا قِبَلَ لَهُم بِهَا وَلَنُخْرِجَنَّهُم مِّنْهَآ أَذِلَّةًۭ وَهُمْ صَٰغِرُونَ
Go back to them, for we will come at them with hosts which they cannot face, and we will expel them from it, abased and degraded.’
قَالَ يَٰٓأَيُّهَا ٱلْمَلَؤُا۟ أَيُّكُمْ يَأْتِينِى بِعَرْشِهَا قَبْلَ أَن يَأْتُونِى مُسْلِمِينَ
He said, ‘O [members of the] elite! Which of you will bring me her throne before they come to me in submission?’
قَالَ عِفْرِيتٌۭ مِّنَ ٱلْجِنِّ أَنَا۠ ءَاتِيكَ بِهِۦ قَبْلَ أَن تَقُومَ مِن مَّقَامِكَ ۖ وَإِنِّى عَلَيْهِ لَقَوِىٌّ أَمِينٌۭ
An afreet from among the jinn said, ‘I will bring it to you before you rise from your place. I have the power to do it and am trustworthy.’
قَالَ ٱلَّذِى عِندَهُۥ عِلْمٌۭ مِّنَ ٱلْكِتَٰبِ أَنَا۠ ءَاتِيكَ بِهِۦ قَبْلَ أَن يَرْتَدَّ إِلَيْكَ طَرْفُكَ ۚ فَلَمَّا رَءَاهُ مُسْتَقِرًّا عِندَهُۥ قَالَ هَٰذَا مِن فَضْلِ رَبِّى لِيَبْلُوَنِىٓ ءَأَشْكُرُ أَمْ أَكْفُرُ ۖ وَمَن شَكَرَ فَإِنَّمَا يَشْكُرُ لِنَفْسِهِۦ ۖ وَمَن كَفَرَ فَإِنَّ رَبِّى غَنِىٌّۭ كَرِيمٌۭ
The one who had knowledge of the Book said, ‘I will bring it to you in the twinkling of an eye.’ So when he saw it set near him, he said, ‘This is by the grace of my Lord, to test me if I will give thanks or be ungrateful. Whoever gives thanks, gives thanks only for his own sake. And whoever is ungrateful [should know that] my Lord is indeed all-sufficient, all-generous.’
قَالَ نَكِّرُوا۟ لَهَا عَرْشَهَا نَنظُرْ أَتَهْتَدِىٓ أَمْ تَكُونُ مِنَ ٱلَّذِينَ لَا يَهْتَدُونَ
He said, ‘Disguise her throne for her, so that we may see whether she is discerning or if she is one of the undiscerning ones.’
فَلَمَّا جَآءَتْ قِيلَ أَهَٰكَذَا عَرْشُكِ ۖ قَالَتْ كَأَنَّهُۥ هُوَ ۚ وَأُوتِينَا ٱلْعِلْمَ مِن قَبْلِهَا وَكُنَّا مُسْلِمِينَ
So when she came, it was said [to her], ‘Is your throne like this one?’ She said, ‘It seems to be the same, and we were informed before it, and we had submitted.’
وَصَدَّهَا مَا كَانَت تَّعْبُدُ مِن دُونِ ٱللَّهِ ۖ إِنَّهَا كَانَتْ مِن قَوْمٍۢ كَٰفِرِينَ
She had been barred [from the way of Allah] by what she used to worship besides Allah, for she belonged to a faithless people.
قِيلَ لَهَا ٱدْخُلِى ٱلصَّرْحَ ۖ فَلَمَّا رَأَتْهُ حَسِبَتْهُ لُجَّةًۭ وَكَشَفَتْ عَن سَاقَيْهَا ۚ قَالَ إِنَّهُۥ صَرْحٌۭ مُّمَرَّدٌۭ مِّن قَوَارِيرَ ۗ قَالَتْ رَبِّ إِنِّى ظَلَمْتُ نَفْسِى وَأَسْلَمْتُ مَعَ سُلَيْمَٰنَ لِلَّهِ رَبِّ ٱلْعَٰلَمِينَ
It was said to her, ‘Enter the palace.’ So when she saw it, she supposed it to be a pool of water, and she bared her shanks. He said, ‘It is a palace paved with crystal.’ She said, ‘My Lord! Indeed I have wronged myself, and I submit with Solomon to Allah, the Lord of all the worlds.’
English translation: Ali Quli Qarai
Triangulated from: enlightening_commentary, tabatabai_al_mizan, tabarsi_majma_al_bayan, tusi_al_tibyan, bahrani_al_burhan (narrations), and qummi. All six sources are present; none is silent.
Human-review flags: bahrani_al_burhan — the cluster of Greatest-Name narrations (73 letters; Āṣaf's single letter; the Imams' seventy-two) contains several near-identical isnāds; representative reports are rendered in full and the parallels summarized.
The passage completes the Solomon–Sheba narrative: the queen's consultation with her nobles, who boast of strength but defer to her (32–33); her maxim that kings ruin the towns they enter and her decision to test Solomon with a gift (34–35); Solomon's rebuke — what God gave me is better — and his return of the gift with a threat of irresistible hosts (36–37); the bringing of the throne by one who had knowledge of the Book, faster than a glance (38–40); its disguise and the queen's careful it is as though it were it (41–42); and her entry into the glass court, her baring her legs, and her submission with Solomon to God, Lord of the worlds (43–44).
The one with knowledge of the Book. This is the passage's interpretive crux. al-Ṭabarsī [tabarsi_majma_al_bayan] and al-Ṭūsī [tusi_al_tibyan] catalogue the names (Āṣaf ibn Barkhiyā, al-Khiḍr, Gabriel, or — al-Jubbaʾī's minority view — Solomon himself), both favoring Āṣaf, keeper of the Greatest Name. al-Baḥrānī [bahrani_al_burhan] and Tafsīr al-Qummī [qummi] name Āṣaf ibn Barkhiyā outright and build on it a distinctly Imāmī reading: al-Baḥrānī's narration-cluster (from al-Bāqir, al-Ṣādiq and al-Hādī) makes the ʿilm min al-kitāb a proof of Āṣaf's role as Solomon's ḥujja, and by extension of ʿAlī's superiority — al-Raḍī's Khaṣāʾiṣ narration has ʿAlī invoke this very verse. al-Ṭabāṭabāʾī [tabatabai_al_mizan] endorses the Āṣaf identification from the Imams but adds his signature philosophical caveat: the Greatest 'Name' cannot be a mere lafẓ but is the external reality itself, so 'letter' must mean something other than a spoken letter.
How the throne came. al-Ṭabarsī lists six or seven modes (angels, wind, created motions, the earth rent, the earth folded, annihilation-and-restoration); al-Ṭabāṭabāʾī and al-Baḥrānī both privilege the folding of the earth (ṭayy al-arḍ), reported from al-Ṣādiq.
The gift and the test. al-Ṭabarsī carries the fullest Wahb narration — the sexless slaves, the unpierced pearl threaded by a worm, the crooked bead — while al-Ṭabāṭabāʾī reads soberly, stressing the queen's royal aloofness (never naming Solomon) and her prudent preference for diplomacy over war. On the glass court, all four Arabic sources report the ṣarḥ mumarrad min qawārīr and the leg-baring; al-Ṭabarsī, al-Ṭūsī and al-Qummī add the jinn's slander about her legs and the origin of depilatory lime and the baths.
Solomon exonerated. Uniquely, al-Ṭabāṭabāʾī appends a discourse defending Solomon against the Old Testament's charges of end-of-life idolatry and against the Uriah-and-Bathsheba tale of his mother, invoking and Solomon did not disbelieve [2:102] and his prayer for my parents, and dismissing the exaggerated reports of Kaʿb and Wahb as Isrāʾīliyyāt. The published enlightening_commentary [enlightening_commentary] narrates the episode devotionally, drawing the moral of Solomon's gratitude this is of my Lord's bounty.
Sources present: enlightening_commentary, tabatabai_al_mizan, tabarsi_majma_al_bayan, tusi_al_tibyan, bahrani_al_burhan, qummi; silent: none.