The story of the name
An inheritance of understanding
And Sulayman inherited Dawud (Surah al-Naml, 27:16) — not merely a throne, but a way of carrying one. What passed from father to son was prophethood, wisdom, and kingship — the Prophet ﷺ made clear that prophets leave no worldly wealth behind them (Bukhari 6730; Muslim 1758), so what Sulayman (AS) inherited was never gold, but a mission. Taught the speech of the birds, given command of the wind and the jinn, Sulayman (AS) held the most spectacular kingdom ever granted a human being. What the Qur'an chooses to show us inside that kingdom is the point.
The smile in the valley of the ants
Marching with an army of jinn, men, and birds, he heard a single ant warn her colony to take cover. The most powerful man on earth smiled at the voice of the smallest creature under his feet — and turned instantly to prayer: "my Lord, enable me to be grateful for Your favor… and admit me by Your mercy among Your righteous servants" (Surah al-Naml, 27:19).
The queen who came to test him
Word reached Sulayman (AS) through a bird. The hoopoe returned from Sheba with news of a nation ruled by a queen, prosperous and wise, but bowing to the sun instead of Allah (Surah al-Naml, 27:20–24). Sulayman sent her an invitation to submit to Allah alone — and before she even arrived to answer it, he asked his court: "which of you will bring me her throne before they come to me submitting?" One of his companions, given knowledge from the Book, brought it to him in less time than a blink (Surah al-Naml, 27:38–40). When the throne of Sheba's queen was set before him in the blink of an eye, his reading of his own power was just as clear: "this is from the favor of my Lord — to test me whether I will be grateful" (Surah al-Naml, 27:40). She arrived, saw the signs Allah had placed before her, and gave the answer the whole scene had been building toward: "my Lord, indeed I have wronged myself, and I submit, with Sulayman, to Allah, Lord of the worlds" (Surah al-Naml, 27:44). A queen's submission, brought about not by conquest, but by a throne moved faster than her own journey and a wisdom she could not argue with.
Wisdom that finds the truth
His judgment became proverbial. The Prophet ﷺ related how two women disputed over an infant, and Sulayman's unexpected test uncovered the true mother in a sentence (Muslim 1720). His famous prayer for a kingdom unmatched after him (Surah Sad, 38:35) was answered in full — and he carried it, the scholars note, as evidence for his Lord rather than ornament for himself.
Cleared of the old accusation
Centuries of later legend painted Solomon as a sorcerer, master of hidden arts. The Qur'an corrects the record directly: "Sulayman did not disbelieve — it was the devils who disbelieved, teaching people magic" (Surah al-Baqarah, 2:102). Whatever power he held, he held as a servant given permission, never as a man who had bent forces to his own will through forbidden means. Power, in this name, is a test of thankfulness — and he passed it smiling.
A death that taught the jinn a lesson
Even his passing carried a message. He died standing, leaning on his staff, and the jinn labouring under him kept working for a long while, believing him still alive and watching over them. Only when a small creature of the earth ate through the staff, and his body finally fell, did they realize the truth (Surah Saba, 34:14). The Qur'an draws the lesson out plainly: if the jinn had truly known the unseen, they would not have stayed in a humiliating labor, unknowing, for all that time. Even in death, Sulayman(AS)'s story served to correct a wrong belief — this time, about what the unseen creation can and cannot know.
In earlier scriptures
He is Solomon of the Hebrew Bible, proverbial for wisdom (1 Kings 3); the two-women judgment appears in both traditions with instructive differences the commentators enjoy comparing. The Queen of Sheba's visit is told in 1 Kings 10 as well — there, she comes to test his wisdom with hard questions, and departs impressed; the Qur'an's account goes further, ending in her explicit submission to Allah.