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The Miracles of Solomon: A Comparative Study of Al-Thaʿlabī’s Qiṣaṣ Al-Anbiyāʾ and 'The City of Brass,' a Tale in the Arabian the Arabian Nights Collection
ALDEEB, NAJLAA
ALDEEB, NAJLAA
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5/30/2025
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Abstract
Solomon’s miracles lived beyond the time of the king himself, as his legend circulated in different geographical areas for several centuries. These miracles resonated from the sixth to the thirteenth centuries, constituting a common cultural legacy, shared by the Jewish, Christian, and Islamic societies. In the Qur’ān, Solomon could command the wind and communicate with birds and demons; in Al-Thaʿlabi’s Qiṣaṣ Al-Anbiyāʾ, Solomon’s throne, a sculpted design with three thousand chairs of gold and silver around them, followed him wherever he went. Motifs of Solomon’s miracles are found in a series of commentaries, anthologies, folktales, and erudite traditions. This study aims to explore the textual representations of Solomon's miracles in Al-Thaʿlabi’s Qiṣaṣ al-Anbiyāʾ (Lives of the Prophets) and “The City of Brass,” a tale in the Arabian Nights collection. To achieve this goal, the portrayal of Solomon and the implications of his miracles are compared within the frameworks of the two narratives. Because religious and fantastical texts are shaped in their historical and cultural contexts, a historical approach is applied to help situate the narratives within their contexts and investigate how these accounts reflect the social and religious dynamics of their time. By exploring the structural and thematic parallels and divergences of these two accounts, the study offers insights into the multifaceted interpretations of Solomon’s story within Islamic literature and folktales, contributing to the broader understanding of Solomon as a figure of wisdom and miraculous power.
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Miracles and Wonders in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Age