The most powerful king who ever lived died standing up, and for a long while nobody knew. Sulayman, peace be upon him, had the wind for a carriage and the jinn for a workforce, and they were so afraid of him that when his soul was quietly taken as he leaned on his staff, his body stayed upright and they kept labouring on, terrified, in front of a man who was no longer there. It took a small creature gnawing through the wood to bring the truth down with him.
This is day twenty-eight of twenty-nine. Today we close the story of the kings who bowed, and then the lecture turns into a corridor of prophets, Ilyas, Dhul-Kifl, and finally an old man in a prayer niche who wanted just one thing before he died, and was given a name no one had carried before.
The king who fell leaning on his staff
فَلَمَّا قَضَيْنَا عَلَيْهِ ٱلْمَوْتَ مَا دَلَّهُمْ عَلَىٰ مَوْتِهِۦٓ إِلَّا دَآبَّةُ ٱلْأَرْضِ تَأْكُلُ مِنسَأَتَهُۥ ۖ فَلَمَّا خَرَّ تَبَيَّنَتِ ٱلْجِنُّ أَن لَّوْ كَانُوا۟ يَعْلَمُونَ ٱلْغَيْبَ مَا لَبِثُوا۟ فِى ٱلْعَذَابِ ٱلْمُهِينِ
“And when We decreed for him [i.e., Solomon] death, nothing indicated to them [i.e., the jinn] his death except a creature of the earth eating his staff. But when he fell, it became clear to the jinn that if they had known the unseen, they would not have remained in humiliating punishment.”
Surah Saba 34:14 Read 34:14 with tafsir
A rumour had hardened among the people that the jinn knew the unseen, that they could see what is hidden. Allah wanted it dismantled, and He chose the death of Sulayman, peace be upon him, to do it. Sulayman would stand with his staff and the jinn would work like clockwork, frightened of him, building what he had set them to build. One ordinary day, as he stood there leaning on it, the Angel of Death came and his soul was taken, and his body did not move. Day after day passed, and the jinn carried on at their backbreaking labour, sure he was still watching.
Then a creature of the earth began, slowly, to eat away at the wooden staff from underneath, until the moment it gave way and the king who had been dead all along finally fell. Only then did everyone understand. Mufti Menk draws the lesson the verse draws: had the jinn truly known the unseen, they would never have kept punishing themselves for nothing in front of a corpse. They did not even know the man in front of them was dead. So the next time someone claims a jinn or a soothsayer can tell you the future, remember Sulayman on his staff. This was a prophet who had been given everything, command over wind and jinn, and yet he was so humble that the day before he had spoken gently to an ant and to a bird. Allah took him as quietly as anyone, and made his death a sign for mankind and jinn at once.
Why we will not be questioned about the queen
Before the lecture leaves Sulayman, peace be upon him, Mufti Menk pauses on a question people love to ask: did Sulayman marry Bilqis, the Queen of Sheba? And his answer is a small lesson in how a Muslim handles a story. One narration says he did; another says she married a man from among his people; another traces her line into the region of Abyssinia, today's Ethiopia. All of it comes from the Israiliyyat, the reports of the People of the Book, and on a matter our revelation neither confirms nor denies, we do exactly what the Sunnah taught: we neither believe it nor reject it, and we let it go. It is, he says plainly, none of our business. On the Day of Judgement Allah will not ask you whom the queen married. He will ask about your own life and how you spent it.
It is a discipline worth carrying through the rest of today, because the prophets who come next are given to us in the Qur'an mostly as names with a word of praise, and the gaps were filled by others over the centuries. The rule holds: where Allah told us, we hold tight; where He drew a veil, we are content to leave it drawn.
Ilyas, against a god named Baal
أَتَدْعُونَ بَعْلًا وَتَذَرُونَ أَحْسَنَ ٱلْخَٰلِقِينَ ٱللَّهَ رَبَّكُمْ وَرَبَّ ءَابَآئِكُمُ ٱلْأَوَّلِينَ
“Do you call upon Baʿl and leave the best of creators - Allāh, your Lord and the Lord of your first forefathers?”
Surah as-Saffat 37:125-126 Read 37:125 with tafsir
From the kings the lecture steps into a row of prophets Allah names but tells us little about, and Mufti Menk is careful here: Allah calls them al-akhyar, the best, the chosen, so whenever a story reaches you that strips a prophet of his dignity, throw it out, because if the prophets themselves were corrupt their people would have had every excuse. The first is Ilyas, peace be upon him, known to some as Elijah. He stood in front of a people who had taken to worshipping an idol called Baal and he asked them the only question that mattered: will you not fear Allah? How can you call on Baal, he said, and walk away from the best of creators, Allah, your Lord and the Lord of your fathers before you?
Notice the word the Qur'an uses, the best of creators, ahsan al-khaliqin. Mufti Menk lingers on it the way he did on the introduction nights: when a person says I made this chair, they made nothing, they only turned Allah's wood into a new shape. To create is to say be, and for it to be. That is the difference Ilyas was pressing on them, the maker against the made. They denied him, and the warning that fell on the people of Nuh and Ad and Thamud is the warning the Qur'an records over them too. But Allah left him honoured in the mouths of those who came after, peace upon Ilyas.
Dhul-Kifl, a name and a word of praise
Beside Ilyas the Qur'an sets another name with almost nothing attached, Dhul-Kifl, peace be upon him. Here Mufti Menk does the honest thing and tells us we simply do not have much detail, only that Allah lists him among the patient and the good. And that, he says, is itself a teaching. We are not reading these lives to collect trivia about who married whom or how long a temple took to build. We are reading to draw out the lesson, the faaida, that we can carry into our own homes and our own streets.
So a prophet can be given to us in a single line, named among the best, and that single line is enough: Allah saw him, Allah was pleased with him, Allah preserved his name in a book that outlives every empire. There is a quiet mercy in that for the rest of us. Not everyone's story will be long. Plenty of righteous people leave almost no trace in the eyes of the world. But if your name is written well with Allah, you have everything, even if history forgets you entirely.
An old man, a private whisper, and a barren wife
ذِكْرُ رَحْمَتِ رَبِّكَ عَبْدَهُۥ زَكَرِيَّآ إِذْ نَادَىٰ رَبَّهُۥ نِدَآءً خَفِيًّا قَالَ رَبِّ إِنِّى وَهَنَ ٱلْعَظْمُ مِنِّى وَٱشْتَعَلَ ٱلرَّأْسُ شَيْبًا وَلَمْ أَكُنۢ بِدُعَآئِكَ رَبِّ شَقِيًّا
“[This is] a mention of the mercy of your Lord to His servant Zechariah. When he called to his Lord a private call [i.e., supplication]. He said, "My Lord, indeed my bones have weakened, and my head has filled with white, and never have I been in my supplication to You, my Lord, unhappy [i.e., disappointed].”
Surah Maryam 19:2-4 Read 19:2 with tafsir
وَإِنِّى خِفْتُ ٱلْمَوَٰلِىَ مِن وَرَآءِى وَكَانَتِ ٱمْرَأَتِى عَاقِرًا فَهَبْ لِى مِن لَّدُنكَ وَلِيًّا يَرِثُنِى وَيَرِثُ مِنْ ءَالِ يَعْقُوبَ ۖ وَٱجْعَلْهُ رَبِّ رَضِيًّا
“And indeed, I fear the successors after me, and my wife has been barren, so give me from Yourself an heir. Who will inherit me and inherit from the family of Jacob. And make him, my Lord, pleasing [to You]."”
Surah Maryam 19:5-6 Read 19:5 with tafsir
Now the lecture arrives at the prophet whose story this whole day is named for. Zakariyya, peace be upon him, was an old man, a prophet who led his people in worship, and he had no children. His wife could not bear, and the two of them had grown old waiting. He was guardian over young Maryam, peace be upon her, and whenever he entered her prayer niche he found provision with her that had no business being there, the fruit of summer in the dead of winter. Where is this from, he would ask, and she would answer, it is from Allah; Allah provides to whom He wills without measure.
And something in that answer cracked his heart open with hope. Mufti Menk catches the exact thought: if Allah can bring out-of-season fruit to this girl, then I am an old man and my wife is barren, but barrenness is only another kind of out-of-season, and Allah can give even that. So he did not announce it or complain it to anyone. He turned to Allah and called Him with a call the Qur'an calls khafiyy, hidden, private, just a tired old man and his Lord in a quiet room. My bones have gone weak, he whispered, and my head is aflame with grey, and never once have I been left disappointed when I called on You. I fear what comes after me; my wife is barren; so grant me, from Yourself, an heir, one who will inherit me and the family of Yaqub, and make him, my Lord, pleasing to You.
We have named him Yahya
يَٰزَكَرِيَّآ إِنَّا نُبَشِّرُكَ بِغُلَٰمٍ ٱسْمُهُۥ يَحْيَىٰ لَمْ نَجْعَل لَّهُۥ مِن قَبْلُ سَمِيًّا
“[He was told], "O Zechariah, indeed We give you good tidings of a boy whose name will be John. We have not assigned to any before [this] name."”
Surah Maryam 19:7 Read 19:7 with tafsir
فَٱسْتَجَبْنَا لَهُۥ وَوَهَبْنَا لَهُۥ يَحْيَىٰ وَأَصْلَحْنَا لَهُۥ زَوْجَهُۥٓ ۚ إِنَّهُمْ كَانُوا۟ يُسَٰرِعُونَ فِى ٱلْخَيْرَٰتِ وَيَدْعُونَنَا رَغَبًا وَرَهَبًا ۖ وَكَانُوا۟ لَنَا خَٰشِعِينَ
“So We responded to him, and We gave to him John, and amended for him his wife. Indeed, they used to hasten to good deeds and supplicate Us in hope and fear, and they were to Us humbly submissive.”
Surah al-Anbiya 21:90 Read 21:90 with tafsir
The answer came back personal. Not yes, not in time, but: O Zakariyya, We give you good news of a boy, and his name is Yahya, a name We have given to no one before him. Allah named the child Himself, before he was even conceived. And the old man, thankful and stunned at once, asked how, my wife is barren and I have reached such extreme old age? The reply is the line that should be hung over every door of every house that thinks its situation is finished: thus it is; your Lord says it is easy for Me, for I created you before, while you were nothing. He asked for a sign, and was told he would not be able to speak to people for three nights though his tongue was sound, and so it happened. Three days later the news was out: his barren wife was carrying a son.
Then the Qur'an, in the very next breath in Surah al-Anbiya, tells us why this couple was answered, and it is worth reading slowly, because it is the family Allah chose to grant. They used to hasten toward good, racing each other to it; they used to call on Allah in hope and in fear together; and they were humble before Him. That is the soil this du'a grew in. Surah Maryam carries his story; Surah al-Anbiya carries his du'a, do not leave me alone, and You are the best of inheritors. He did not even ask for himself, in the end. He asked for someone to carry the worship of Allah forward after him.
The boy given wisdom, and the head demanded as a gift
يَٰيَحْيَىٰ خُذِ ٱلْكِتَٰبَ بِقُوَّةٍ ۖ وَءَاتَيْنَٰهُ ٱلْحُكْمَ صَبِيًّا وَحَنَانًا مِّن لَّدُنَّا وَزَكَوٰةً ۖ وَكَانَ تَقِيًّا وَبَرًّۢا بِوَٰلِدَيْهِ وَلَمْ يَكُن جَبَّارًا عَصِيًّا
“[Allāh said], "O John, take the Scripture [i.e., adhere to it] with determination." And We gave him judgement [while yet] a boy. And affection from Us and purity, and he was fearing of Allāh. And dutiful to his parents, and he was not a disobedient tyrant.”
Surah Maryam 19:12-14 Read 19:12 with tafsir
Yahya, peace be upon him, was a prophet from boyhood. Take the Scripture with strength, Allah told him, and gave him sound judgement while he was still a child; it is said he held the entire Torah in his heart. He was not a child like the others, playing and joking and stretching the truth; he was serious, drawn to the prayer hall, tender not only toward people but toward every creature of Allah. The Qur'an piles the praise on him: affection from Us, purity, mindful of Allah, devoted to his parents, never a tyrant, never in rebellion. When he spoke to his people they wept; they would sit and listen and the tears would run, because they could feel how much he wanted them saved. His cousin, by the way, was Maryam, peace be upon her, the daughter of his mother's sister.
And then the world did what the world does to a man who keeps telling it the truth. The king of the time wanted to marry within his own family, a marriage Yahya kept publicly calling forbidden, refusing to soften it. Mufti Menk does not flinch from the ending the histories preserve, though the Qur'an itself does not recount how Yahya died: a woman who wanted that marriage demanded, as her price, the head of Yahya. Soldiers came for him while he stood in prayer, and they killed a prophet of Allah where he worshipped. The lecture closes on the verse Allah sends down over people like that, those who kill the prophets and kill the ones who call to justice, that a painful punishment awaits them and their deeds are wasted in both worlds. The lesson Mufti Menk leaves us with is uncomfortable and aimed at our own chests: the first sign of a sick heart is getting irritated when someone reminds you of Allah's command. Yahya pressed the right buttons, and they killed him for it. The least we can do is not hate the reminder.