ABSTRACT
In sura 34 we are told that, after Sulayman’s death, the jinn are hard at work under his apparent gaze until a small creature eats away at the wood of his staff and he eventually collapses to the ground. Then the jinn know they have been working for nothing, since Sulayman was not looking at them at all. The insect knew this, while the much more advanced jinn did not. Bilqis realized that there was something significant behind what was in front of her, the sarh, and the contrast between the unseen and the seen led her to convert to Islam, because she took the contrast to indicate her inability to understand the world by herself, without the help of the One God.
