Sabaeans

For The kingdom, see Sheba.
Not to be confused with the Sabians, also spelled Sabaeans or Sabeans, a religious group mentioned in the Quran whose name was adopted by various sects.
Sabaeans
𐩪𐩨𐩱 (Sabaean)
السبئيون (Arabic)
Emblem of Sheba
Map of the Kingdom in the 8th century BCE
Languages
Sabaic
Religion
Arabian polytheism

The Sabaeans or Sabeans (Sabaean: 𐩪𐩨𐩱, romanized: S¹Bʾ; Arabic: ٱلسَّبَئِيُّوْن, romanized: as-Sabaʾiyyūn; Hebrew: סְבָאִים, romanized: Səḇāʾīm) were an ancient group of South Arabians.[1] They spoke Sabaic, one of the Old South Arabian languages.[2] In the region of modern-day Yemen, the Sabeans founded the Kingdom of Sheba (Arabic: سَبَأ, romanized: Saba'),[3][4]which played an important role in the Hebrew Bible, was mentioned in the Quran,[5][6][7] and was "the oldest and most important of the South Arabian kingdoms".[1]

The historical dating of the foundation of Sabaʾ is a point of disagreement among scholars. Kenneth Kitchen dates the kingdom's existence to between 1200 BCE and 275 CE, with its capital at Maʾrib.[8] 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."[9] The Kingdom fell after a long but sporadic civil war between several Yemenite dynasties claiming kingship,[10][11] and the late Himyarite Kingdom rose as victorious.[12]

Sabaeans are mentioned several times in the Hebrew Bible. In the Quran,[13] they are described as Qawm Sabaʾ (سَبَأ, not to be confused with Ṣābiʾ, صَابِئ),[3][4] and as Qawm Tubbaʿ (Arabic: قَوْم تُبَّع, lit. 'People of Tubbaʿ').[14][15]

  1. ^ a b "The kingdoms of ancient South Arabia". British Museum. Archived from the original on May 4, 2015. Retrieved 2013-02-22.
  2. ^ Stuart Munro-Hay, Aksum: An African Civilization of Late Antiquity, 1991.
  3. ^ a b Quran 27:6-93
  4. ^ a b Quran 34:15-18
  5. ^ Burrowes, Robert D. (2010). Historical Dictionary of Yemen. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 319. ISBN 978-0810855281.
  6. ^ St. John Simpson (2002). Queen of Sheba: treasures from ancient Yemen. British Museum Press. p. 8. ISBN 0714111511.
  7. ^ Kitchen, Kenneth Anderson (2003). On the Reliability of the Old Testament. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. p. 116. ISBN 0802849601.
  8. ^ Kenneth A. Kitchen The World of "Ancient Arabia" Series. Documentation for Ancient Arabia. Part I. Chronological Framework and Historical Sources p.110
  9. ^ 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
  10. ^ Muller, D. H. (1893), Himyarische Inschriften [Himyarian inscriptions] (in German), Mordtmann, p. 53
  11. ^ Javad Ali, The Articulate in the History of Arabs before Islam, Volume 2, p. 420
  12. ^ Nebes 2023, p. 303.
  13. ^ 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.
  14. ^ Quran 44:37 -Yusuf Ali
  15. ^ Quran 50:12-14