Sheba
| Author:Laxman Burdak, IFS (R) |
Sheba or Saba was kingdom in pre-Islamic southwestern Arabia, frequently mentioned in the Bible (notably in the story of King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba). Its capital, at least in the middle period, was Maʾrib, which lies 120 km east of present-day Sanaa, in Yemen.
Variants
Jat Gotras Namesake
- Sabari = Sabæi (Pliny.v.32)
- Seva = Sabæi (Pliny.v.32)
- Shewal = Sabæi (Pliny.v.32)
- Sevlia = Sabæi (Pliny.v.32)
History
It has been variously cited by ancient Assyrian, Greek, and Roman writers from about the 8th century bce to about the 5th century ce. Its capital, at least in the middle period, was Maʾrib, which lies 75 miles (120 km) east of present-day Sanaa, in Yemen. A second major city was Ṣirwāḥ.
The Sabaeans were a Semitic people who became established in southern Arabia at an unknown date. Excavations in central Yemen suggest that the Sabaean civilization began as early as the 10th–12th century bce. Early leaders styled themselves mukarribs—they apparently either were high priest–princes or exercised some function parallel to the kingly function—and by the 7th–5th century bce there were also “kings.” This middle period was characterized above all by a tremendous outburst of building activity, principally at Maʾrib and Ṣirwāḥ, and most of the great temples and monuments, including the great Maʾrib Dam, on which Sabaean agricultural prosperity depended, date back to this period. Further, there was an ever-shifting pattern of alliances and wars between Sabaʾ and other peoples of southwestern Arabia—not only the important kingdoms of Qatabān and Ḥaḍramawt but also a number of lesser but still independent kingdoms and city-states.
Sabaʾ was rich in spices and agricultural products and carried on a wealth of trade by overland caravan and by sea. The Bab el-Mandeb Strait, which narrowly separates Arabia from Africa, served as a major trade route throughout the kingdom’s existence. The Sabaeans and the Abyssinians (Ethiopians) enjoyed significant cultural and technological entanglement: many Sabaean inscriptions and religious artifacts have been found in the historical region of Tigray, and irrigation techniques used in Sabaʾ were employed in the region as well. Many of the languages spoken in the Horn of Africa today, including Amharic and Tigrinya, continue to use a script derived from the one used by the Sabaeans.
Toward the end of the 3rd century ce, a powerful king named Shamir Yuharʿish (who seems incidentally to be the first really historical personage whose fame has survived in the Islamic traditions) assumed the title “king of Sabaʾ and the Dhū Raydān and of Ḥaḍramawt and Yamanāt.” By this time, therefore, the political independence of Ḥaḍramawt had succumbed to Sabaʾ, which had thus become the controlling power in all of southwestern Arabia. In the mid-4th century ce it underwent a temporary eclipse, for the title of “king of Sabaʾ and the Dhū Raydān” was then claimed by the king of Aksum on the east African coast. At the end of the 4th century, southern Arabia was again independent under a “king of Sabaʾ and the Dhū Raydān and Ḥaḍramawt and Yamanāt.” But within two centuries the Sabaeans would disappear as they were successively overrun by Persian adventurers and by the Muslim Arabs.
Source: Encyclopædia Britannica, Sabaʾ
Sabaeans
The Sabaeans or Sabeans (Sabaean: 𐩪𐩨𐩱, S¹Bʾ; Arabic: ٱلسَّبَئِيُّوْن, romanized: as-Sabaʾiyyūn; Hebrew: סְבָאִים, romanized: Səḇāʾīm) were an ancient group of South Arabians.[1] They spoke the Sabaean language, one of the Old South Arabian languages.[2] They founded the kingdom of Sabaʾ (Arabic: سَبَأ) in modern-day Yemen,[3] which was believed to be the biblical land of Sheba[4]and "the oldest and most important of the South Arabian kingdoms".[5]
The exact date of the foundation of Sabaʾ is a point of disagreement among scholars. Kenneth Kitchen dates the kingdom to between 1200 BCE and 275 CE, with its capital at Maʾrib, in what is now Yemen.[6] On the other hand, Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman believe that "the Sabaean kingdom began to flourish only from the eighth century BC onward" and that the story of Solomon and the Queen of Sheba is "an anachronistic seventh-century set piece."[7] The Kingdom fell after a long but sporadic civil war between several Yemenite dynasties claiming kingship;[8]from this, the late Himyarite Kingdom arose as victors.
Sabaeans are mentioned several times in the Hebrew Bible. In the Quran,[9] they are described as either Sabaʾ (سَبَأ, not to be confused with Ṣābiʾ, صَابِئ),[10] or as Qawm Tubbaʿ (Arabic: قَوْم تُبَّع, lit. 'People of Tubbaʿ').[11]
Mention by Pliny
Pliny[12] while describing Arabia mentions... Also, the island of Chelonitis27, numerous islands of Ichthyophagi, the deserts of Odanda, Basa, many islands of the Sabæi, the rivers Thanar and Amnume, the islands of Dorice, and the fountains of Daulotos and Dora.
We find also the islands of Pteros, Labatanis, Coboris, and Sambrachate, with a town of the same name28 on the mainland.
Lying to the south are a great number of islands, the largest of which is Camari; also the river Musecros, and the port of Laupas.
.....We then come to the Sabæi, a nation of Scenitæ29, with numerous islands, and the city of Acila30, which is their mart, and from which persons embark for India.
....We then come to a promontory, from which to the mainland of the Troglodytæ it is fifty miles, and then the Thoani, the Actæi, the Chatramotitæ, the Tonabei, the Antidalei, the Lexianæ, the Agræi, the Cerbani, and the Sabæi37, the best known of all the tribes of Arabia, on account of their frankincense; these nations extend from sea to sea.38
27 Stephanus mentions this as an island of the Erythræan Sea. Hardly any of these places appear to have been identified; and there is great uncertainty as to the orthography of the names.
28 From which came the myrrh mentioned by Pliny in B. xii. c. 36.
29 Or the Tent-Dwellers, the modern Bedouins.
30 By some geographers identified with the Ocelis or Ocila, mentioned in c. 26, the present Zee Hill or Ghela, a short distance to the south of Mocha, and to the north of the Straits of Bab-el-Mandeb. Hardouin says, however, that it was a different place, Acila being in the vicinity of the Persian Gulf, in which he appears to be correct. .....
37 Their country is supposed to have been the Sheba of Scripture, the queen of which visited king Solomon. It was situate in the south-western corner of Arabia Felix, the north and centre of the province of Yemen, though the geographers before Ptolemy seem to give it a still wider extent, quite to the south of Yemen. The Sabæi most probably spread originally on both sides of the southern part of the Red Sea, the shores of Arabia and Africa. Their capital was Saba, in which, according to their usage, their king was confined a close prisoner.
38 The Persian Gulf to the Red Sea.
References
- ↑ "The kingdoms of ancient South Arabia". British Museum.
- ↑ Stuart Munro-Hay, Aksum: An African Civilization of Late Antiquity, 1991.
- ↑ Quran 27:6-93 Quran 27:6–93; Quran 34:15-18 Quran 34:15–18
- ↑ Burrowes, Robert D. (2010). Historical Dictionary of Yemen. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 319. ISBN 978-0810855281.
- ↑ "The kingdoms of ancient South Arabia". British Museum.
- ↑ Kenneth A. Kitchen The World of "Ancient Arabia" Series. Documentation for Ancient Arabia. Part I. Chronological Framework and Historical Sources p.110
- ↑ Finkelstein, Israel; Silberman, Neil Asher, David and Solomon: In Search of the Bible's Sacred Kings and the Roots of the Western Tradition, p. 171
- ↑ Muller, D. H. (1893), Himyarische Inschriften [Himyarian inscriptions] (in German), Mordtmann, p. 53
- ↑ Wheeler, Brannon M. (2002). Prophets in the Quran: An Introduction to the Quran and Muslim Exegesis. Continuum International Publishing Group. p. 166. ISBN 0-8264-4956-5 – via Google Books.
- ↑ Quran 27:6-93 Quran 27:6–93; Quran 34:15-18 Quran 34:15–18
- ↑ Quran 44:37 Quran 44:37 (Translated by Yusuf Ali); Quran 50:12 Quran 50:12–14
- ↑ Natural History by Pliny Book VI/Chapter 32