The Queen Of Sheba And Sun Worship
Assalamu-ʿalaykum wa rahamatullahi wa barakatuhu:
1. Introduction
But the hoopoe tarried not far: he (came up and) said: "I have compassed (territory) which thou hast not compassed, and I have come to thee from Saba with tidings true. I found (there) a woman ruling over them and provided with every requisite; and she has a magnificent throne. I found her and her people worshipping the sun besides Allah: Satan has made their deeds seem pleasing in their eyes, and has kept them away from the Path,- so they receive no guidance..." [Qur'an 27:22-24]
In Sura al-Naml, Solomon was informed by the hoopoe that he saw the kingdom of Sheba (i.e., Saba) where a Queen ruled. Solomon was also told that the Queen and her subjects worshipped the Sun. However, according to the Christian missionaries "archaeology" has shown that Sun-worship by the people of Sheba was "proven" to be incorrect since Moon-worship was prevalent in this particular region. In order to support their supposition they relied on an article called The Lunar Passion And The Daughters of Allah which claims that: A measure of Muhammad's limited knowledge of the ancient traditions of the Arab deities is gained from the fact that the Qur'an states that the Queen of Sheba was converted to the true god from the sun-worship of her people (Pritchard 1974 14), while all the evidence at Marib suggests that the Moon God, the very source of the crescent of Islam, was always the predominant deity.
Recently, another missionary came up with a similar claim which he made by assembling bits and pieces of material off the internet which he subsequently labelled as "archaeological evidence". It is surprising that the above two articles, which claim to represent "archaeology" do not provide any scholarly reference(s) as to where exactly the evidence from Marib suggests that the Moon-god was always the "predominant deity" during the time of the Queen of Sheba. In this paper, we will examine the type of worship practised in the Kingdom of Sheba utilising archaeological and literary sources. 2. Chronology And Location Of The Kingdom Of Sheba
Before we begin our discussion on the kind of worship which used to happen during the time of Queen of Sheba, we must first establish the chronology and the location of the Kingdom of Sheba. This will enable us to gain an understanding of and appreciate the archaeological discoveries.
CHRONOLOGY OF SOLOMON AND THE QUEEN OF SHEBA
The Qur'an never mentioned the Queen of Sheba by name, though Arab sources name her Bilqis. Both the Hebrew Bible and the Qur'an place Solomon and the Queen of Sheba as contemporaries. It is generally agreed that Solomon started ruling c. 970 BCE due to synchronisms with Egyptian and Assyrian historical records.[1] Using the archaeological data, biblical chronologists have placed the reign of Solomon quite precisely at c. 970-930 BCE.[2] Similar dating is also mentioned in The Jewish Encyclopedia,[3] The Anchor Bible Dictionary,[4] Encyclopedia Of The Bible,[5] The Eerdmans Bible Dictionary,[6] New Bible Dictionary[7] among others.[8] This makes the Queen of Sheba's reign also in the 10th century BCE.
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