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Islamic Tales of King Solomon
| Article
# : |
11755 |
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Section : |
CULTURE
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| Issue
Date : |
4 / 1987 |
2,913 Words |
| Author
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Jan Knappert
Jan Knappert is a folklorist and specialist in African and
Oriental languages who is based in Belgium. |
Storytellers in the Middle East will (for a fee) tell you the sad lessons behind the uxorious life of King Solomon. What profound lessons there are in these tales! "Listen!" the storyteller will say....
When he was still young, Solomon bragged that he would marry a thousand wives so that they would bear him a thousand strong sons who would fight his wars for him. However, sons are born when God wishes, not when man wishes. God punished Solomon by giving him only one son, who was half a boy: one eye, one ear, one arm, one leg, and a body as lean as half a body. When he saw this, Solomon threw himself down on the ground before the Lord. So, God forgave him and made the young prince perfect of limb and leg. Nevertheless, Solomon had only that one son to succeed him as king.
Some of Solomon's thousand wives were difficult to deal with. One of his favorites persuaded him to give her a mattress filled with the feathers of all the birds, so Solomon, who was also ruler of all animals and birds, invited the birds to come and donate their feathers to his youngest queen. All the birds came obediently except the owl. Solomon found the owl dozing in his own palace tower. "Why did you not come?" asked the king. The owl replied that he takes orders from the king but not from a young girl.
Ignoring the sting in this reply, the king said: "I will forgive you if you can answer three questions. First, are there more nights or more days?" The owl answered: "There are more days since the nights of the full moon are like days." "Are there more living or more dead?" "There are more dead since the poor are like dead." "Are there more women or more men?" "There
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