This entry examines the account in Surah an-Naml 27:18-19 of an ant warning its colony to take shelter. It asks how far the passage's picture of coordinated alarm and retreat corresponds to what is now known of ant communication, while noting that it sits within a prophetic narrative.
The source text
حَتَّىٰٓ إِذَآ أَتَوْا۟ عَلَىٰ وَادِ ٱلنَّمْلِ قَالَتْ نَمْلَةٌ يَـٰٓأَيُّهَا ٱلنَّمْلُ ٱدْخُلُوا۟ مَسَـٰكِنَكُمْ لَا يَحْطِمَنَّكُمْ سُلَيْمَـٰنُ وَجُنُودُهُۥ وَهُمْ لَا يَشْعُرُونَ
“Until, when they came upon the valley of the ants, an ant said, "O ants, enter your dwellings that you not be crushed by Solomon and his soldiers while they perceive not."”
Qur'an 27:18 · Saheeh International
فَتَبَسَّمَ ضَاحِكًا مِّن قَوْلِهَا وَقَالَ رَبِّ أَوْزِعْنِىٓ أَنْ أَشْكُرَ نِعْمَتَكَ ٱلَّتِىٓ أَنْعَمْتَ عَلَىَّ وَعَلَىٰ وَٰلِدَىَّ وَأَنْ أَعْمَلَ صَـٰلِحًا تَرْضَىٰهُ وَأَدْخِلْنِى بِرَحْمَتِكَ فِى عِبَادِكَ ٱلصَّـٰلِحِينَ
“So [Solomon] smiled, amused at her speech, and said, "My Lord, enable me to be grateful for Your favor which You have bestowed upon me and upon my parents and to do righteousness of which You approve. And admit me by Your mercy into [the ranks of] Your righteous servants."”
Qur'an 27:19 · Saheeh International
What was understood in the seventh century
Ants were familiar insects in seventh-century Arabia, and their columns and nests would have been a common sight. The idea that a colony issues a coordinated alarm and directs its members to shelter, however, was not part of documented natural knowledge. The verse attributes to a single ant a warning speech with three distinct elements: it perceives a threat, it names that threat as Solomon (peace be upon him) and his forces, and it issues a directive, telling the colony to enter their dwellings so as not to be crushed.
The speaker is grammatically feminine, qalat namlatun ("an ant, feminine, said"). This detail matters to the sign-reading, since it is the females that carry out the colony's work. The passage as a whole belongs to a narrative about a prophet's God-given understanding of animal speech, rather than to a description of insect biology, and that framing bears directly on how much the text can be said to assert about ants.
The modern correspondence
Modern myrmecology, developed largely across the twentieth century, has shown that ants communicate through chemical pheromones, including dedicated alarm signals, and through vibration and stridulation. These signals produce genuinely coordinated colony responses, among them a rapid retreat into the nest when the colony is threatened or disturbed. The behaviour described in the verse, an alarm followed by a general withdrawal into the dwellings, corresponds to this pattern of collective response.
Female workers dominate colony labour and defence, which is consistent with the feminine speaker in the verse. Commentators have noted the match between the passage and this modern picture of alarm communication and colony coordination. They also caution that the text presents an ant speaking intelligible sentences within a miracle narrative, not a technical account of chemical signalling, so the correspondence should be described as a resonance rather than as a stated scientific fact.
Considerations and counterpoints
Skeptics argue that this is a miracle story about Solomon comprehending animals, not a claim about ant biology, so reading modern pheromone science into it is post-hoc. They add that ants do not literally speak sentences, so the "communication" match holds only at the level of coordinated alarm behaviour, and that a colony scattering into its nest when disturbed was arguably observable in antiquity by anyone who watched closely. Defenders reply that the specific combination of perceiving a danger, naming it, and directing an organised retreat is notable, and fits the female-dominated colony now described by science. They also observe that pheromone signalling was invisible until the twentieth century, so the match, if granted, concerns a mechanism the audience could not have known even in outline. The honest position is that the correspondence is real but is drawn by later readers, since the verse itself frames the episode as prophetic understanding rather than entomology, and rests its weight on the meaning of the story rather than on any technical claim.
Credibility rating: Tier 2 · Interpretive — Authentic clear text whose match to ant alarm communication is real, but the passage is a prophetic narrative and the correspondence to pheromone signaling is drawn by later readers rather than stated as science.