The Worm in the Staff

Allah (swt) fulfilled his duʿāʾ, when he said: give me a kingdom that will occur to nobody after me. Allah (swt) gave him a unique kingdom; and part of the uniqueness of the kingdom of Sulaymān is that he had control over the shayāṭīn. And Sulaymān (peace be upon him) would put the shayāṭīn under slave labour; they would work for him in what Allah (swt) has called ʿadhāb muhīn. He would have them work and serve him, and he would command them to do very difficult tasks. This is what Allah (swt) gave Sulaymān the ability to do. So it is a service for Sulaymān, and at the same time it is a punishment for the shayāṭīn; they had to do this slave labour for him. But the Jews accused Sulaymān of being influenced by the shayāṭīn and being controlled by the shayāṭīn.

Sulaymān (peace be upon him) had this control over the jinn. And when Sulaymān (peace be upon him) passed away, the shayāṭīn continued working for him, even though he was already dead — because he was leaning on his cane, and he was dead. But the shayāṭīn used to think that he was alive, even though he had already passed away. And termites were eating his cane from the inside, and the cane was going hollow; but he was still supported by his cane, sitting on his throne. And then, when the termites kept on drilling through the cane and the cane broke down, then Sulaymān (peace be upon him) fell down. Only then did the jinn and the shayāṭīn realise that Sulaymān was dead. But before that they continued serving, and going through that slave labour, because they were still seeing Sulaymān sitting on his ʿarsh, on his throne.

And Allah (swt) has mentioned this in the Qur'an to refute the claims of the Jews that Sulaymān was controlled or influenced by jinn. Allah (swt) says: then, when We decreed death for him — Sulaymān — nothing informed them, the jinn, of his death, except a little worm of the earth, which kept slowly gnawing away at his stick. So when he fell down, the jinn saw clearly that if they had known the unseen, they would not have stayed in the humiliating torment.

This ayah responds to two things. First of all, it responds to the claim that the jinn were influencing Sulaymān (peace be upon him). And number two, it responds to the claim that the jinn know al-ghayb. The jinn do not know al-ghayb. And the fortune-tellers and the magicians depend on the jinn, and they claim that the jinn know the future, and: since we have connection with the jinn, we can know and tell what will happen in the future. But Allah (swt) says: if the jinn knew al-ghayb, if they knew the unseen, they would not have remained in this punishment. Because the kind of tasks that Sulaymān was putting them through was a form of punishment and humiliation for the shayāṭīn and the jinn, and they kept on doing it even though Sulaymān was dead. And this is a proof that the jinn and the shayāṭīn do not know al-ghayb; they do not know the unseen.

The jinn do not have any knowledge whatsoever about the unseen, except what they steal from the conversation, when they eavesdrop on the angels; that is the only information that they have, and they mix one piece of truth with ninety-nine lies.

Sulaymān (peace be upon him) passed away — and that is when the jinn realised that they had been working overtime. And they know that he is the only human being who has control over them; so as soon as Sulaymān (peace be upon him) passed away, they went back to their normal jobs of the pre-Sulaymān era, and that is to deviate people. Sulaymān (peace be upon him) did not have control over all of the jinn and the shayāṭīn; Allah (swt) put under his control some of the jinn and the shayāṭīn. This is the story of Sulaymān (peace be upon him).