She said: 'O Council, let me hear your counsel, concerning my affairs, for I am not used to deciding an affair until you bear me witness' 32 They said, "We are men of strength and of great military might, but the command is yours, so see what you will command." 33 She said, "Surely, when mighty kings invade a country, they despoil it and humiliate its noblest inhabitants, these men will do the same, 34 "But verily! I am going to send him a present, and see with what (answer) the messengers return." 35 So, when the envoys came to Solomon he said: "Do you wish to increase my wealth? Yet what God has given me is better than what He has given you. No. Be gratified in your present. 36 Return thou to them; we shall assuredly come against them with hosts they have not power to resist, and we shall expel them from there, abased and utterly humbled.' 37 He said: O chiefs! which of you will bring unto me her throne, ere they come unto me submitting themselves? 38 Said a bold one of the invisible beings [subject to Solomon]: "I shall bring it to thee ere thou rise from thy council-seat - for, behold, I am powerful enough to do it, [and] worthy of trust!" 39 But one who had knowledge of the letter, said: "I will bring it to you in the twinkling of an eye." When Solomon saw it before him, (he said): "This is by the grace of my Lord that He may test me whether I am grateful or I am thankless. Yet if one is grateful, he is grateful for himself, and if one is thankless, then surely my Lord is unconcerned and magnanimous." 40 He said: Disguise her throne for her that we may see whether she will go aright or be of those not rightly guided. 41 And so, as soon as she arrived, she was asked: "Is thy throne like this?" She answered: "It is as though it were the same!" [And Solomon said to his nobles: "She has arrived at the truth without any help from us,] although it is we who have been given [divine] knowledge before her, and have [long ago] surrendered ourselves unto God! 42 And what she worshipped besides Allah prevented her, surely she was of an unbelieving people. 43 [After a while] she was told: "Enter this court!" - but when she saw it, she thought that it was a fathomless expanse of water, and she bared her legs. Said he: "Behold, it is [but] a court smoothly paved with glass!" Cried she: "O my Sustainer! I have been sinning against myself thy worshipping aught but Thee]: but [now] I have surrendered myself, with Solomon, unto the Sustainer of all the worlds!" 44