The Ant of Sulayman

The account

As Sulayman's columns crossed the valley of the ants, one ant issued the Qur'an's finest example of leadership at the smallest scale: "O ants, enter your dwellings, lest Sulayman and his soldiers crush you while they do not perceive" (27:18). Every clause is jurisprudence: she warned her own, named the threat precisely, prescribed the action, and excused the powerful of intent, "while they do not perceive," guarding her colony's hearts from grudge along with their bodies.

Sulayman, granted the speech of birds and more, heard her from the head of an army and did not ride on. "He smiled, laughing at her speech, and said: My Lord, enable me to be grateful for Your favor" (27:19). An emperor was halted by an ant and moved to gratitude: the sound tradition adds a matching account, the prophet of old who, stung by an ant, burned the colony and was corrected by revelation for punishing "a nation among the nations that glorify." The surah of the great throne-heist and the hudhud's mission is named, in the end, an-Naml: the Ants. Heaven's index gives the smallest voice the title page.

The facts

• The cry27:18, complete crisis protocol
• Excused“While they do not perceive”
• EffectAn emperor's gratitude
• HonorThe surah bears her name

The Qur'an on it

The narrations

Read beside it

The words

• سورَةSurahThe Qur'an

On the Path

• 22Sulayman: Wind, Jinn & Hudhudسليمان