And they follow wa’ttaba‘ū is a supplement to nabadha ‘it cast away’ what the devils used to relate during the time of Solomon’s kingdom in the way of sorcery it is said that they the devils buried these books of sorcery underneath his throne when his kingdom was taken from him; it is also said that they used to listen stealthily and add fabrications to what they heard and then pass it on to the priests who would compile it in books; this would be disseminated and rumours spread that the jinn had knowledge of the Unseen. Solomon gathered these books and buried them. When he died the devils showed people where these books were and the latter brought them out and found that they contained sorcery and said ‘Your kingdom was only thanks to what is in here’; they then took to learning them and rejected the Scriptures of their prophets. In order to demonstrate Solomon’s innocence and in repudiation of the Jews when they said ‘Look at this Muhammad he mentions Solomon as one of the prophets when he was only a sorcerer’ God exalted says Solomon disbelieved not that is he did not work magic because he disbelieved but the devils disbelieved teaching the people sorcery this sentence is a circumstantial qualifier referring to the person governing the verb kafarū; and teaching them that which was revealed to the two angels that is the sorcery that they were inspired to perform al-malakayn ‘the two angels’ a variant reading has al-malikayn ‘the two kings’ who were in Babylon — a town in lower Iraq — Hārūt and Mārūt here the names are standing in for ‘the two angels’ or an explication of the latter. Ibn ‘Abbās said ‘They were two sorcerers who used to teach people magic’; it is also said that they were two angels that had been sent to teach sorcery to people as a trial from God. They taught not any man without them saying by way of counsel ‘We are but a temptation a trial from God for people so that He may test them when they are taught it whoever learns it is a disbeliever but whoever renounces it he is a believer; do not disbelieve’ by learning it; if this person refused and insisted on learning it they would teach him.
