She was told, "Enter the palace." But when she saw it, she thought it was a body of water and uncovered her shins [to wade through]. He said, "Indeed, it is a palace [whose floor is] made smooth with glass." She said, "My Lord, indeed I have wronged myself, and I submit with Solomon to Allāh, Lord of the worlds."
When Sulayman brought the throne of Bilqis before she and her people arrived, he issued orders that some of its features should be altered, so that he could test her and see whether she recognized it and how composed she would be when she saw it. Would she hasten to say either that it was her throne or that it was not So he said:
(Disguise her throne for her that we may see whether she will be guided, or she will be one of those not guided.) Ibn `Abbas said: "Remove some of its adornments and parts." Mujahid said: "He issued orders that it should be changed, so whatever was red should be made yellow and vice versa, and whatever was green should be made red, so everything was altered." `Ikrimah said, "They added some things and took some things away." Qatadah said, "It was turned upside down and back to front, and some things were added and some things were taken away."
The story of Bilqis has ended in the above verses on the statement that she converted to Islam after coming to Sayyidna Sulaiman ۔ (علیہ السلام) What happened after that? The Qur'an is silent on this. It is for this reason that when someone asked ` Abdullah ibn ` Uyaynah whether Sayyidna Sulaiman (علیہ السلام) had married Bilqis, he answered that her case has finished on this أَسْلَمْتُ مَعَ سُلَيْمَانَ لِلَّـهِ رَبِّ الْعَالَمِينَ (I submit, along with Sulaiman (علیہ السلام) ، to Allah, the Lord of the worlds - 44). The idea behind this answer was that when Qur'an has not divulged anything after that, it is not for us to probe any further. But Ibn ` Asakir has reported on the authority of Sayyidna ` Ikrimah ؓ that Sayyidna Sulaiman (علیہ السلام) had married Bilqis after that, and she was retained as the sovereign of her country. She was then sent back to Yemen, and Sayyidna Sulaiman (علیہ السلام) used to visit her every month for three days. He got three palaces made for her in Yemen, which had no parallel of their kind. (Only God knows best)
Tazkirul Quran
Maulana Wahiduddin KhanOn ayahs 44–46
The Queen of Sheba set forth from her country and reached Jerusalem. When she came to meet Solomon, the Queen, to her surprise, was asked whether her own throne resemebled the throne she saw at the palace. The Queen admitted that she was wonderstuck to see this throne which was exactly similar to her own. The throne which she had kept safe in her palace in Ma‘arib, had mysteriously traversed a distance of fifteen hundred miles and reached Jerusalem. After entering Solomon’s palace, the Queen of Sheba reached a room where the floor was made of thick, transparent slabs of glass with water flowing beneath them. Mistaking the floor for a pool of water, the Queen quickly pulled up her garment to prevent it from getting wet. Seeing this, Solomon explained to her that it was just the floor and not water. In this way, she was made to realise how outward appearances may deceive the understanding of men, the inner reality often being different from what meets the eye. Similarly, man starts worshipping the sun and moon because of their prominence, but the real God is beyond these visible phenomena. The Queen of Sheba had so far been worshipping the sun under the influence of the conventions of her nation. But, in the company of Solomon, whatever she heard and whatever she saw, completely banished from her mind all impressions of the majesty of anything other than God. Consequently, she renounced the religion of polytheism and whole-heartedly embraced the religion of monotheism.
Uthmani text of the Madinah mushaf (King Fahd Complex). Translation: Saheeh International. Tafsir via Quran.com.
