"Solomon" could have communicated with the animals through gesture recognition
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Peace,
Although i agree with most parts of bro Arnold's interpreation and im entirely for a rational and non supernatural interpretaion of the Quran, i think it makes more sense to not take the terms "naml" and "hudhud" as human tribes but "ant" and "certain kind of bird" respectively. This is because in this case the traditionalists had no bias whatsoever in associating these meanings to the terms unlike the jinn, malak or isa miraculous virgin birth parts where they were obviously influenced by Christians or Arabic folk tales making them associate jinn with supernatural ghost beings. Here this aint the case and we know from modern science that through practice one can become very sensitive to certain gestures which certain animals make and recognize what they mean. A zebra is known to recognize whether a lion wants to eat the herd while hes still sleeping/resting by carefully analysing certain patterns in his face. These are marvellous processes. Solomon was probably granted with a very sensitive neural network which was able to pick up the slightest change in gestures of animals thus making him understand them as well as mimicking them in a way tht some of them like his bird understood him too. Thus theres nothing supernatural about this. Its all completely rational and possible in the natural world. GOD Bless!