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Pre-Islamic Arab Queens Author(S): Nabia Abbott Reviewed Work(S): Source: the American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literatures, Vol Pre-Islamic Arab Queens Author(s): Nabia Abbott Reviewed work(s): Source: The American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literatures, Vol. 58, No. 1 (Jan., 1941), pp. 1-22 Published by: The University of Chicago Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/529209 . Accessed: 05/05/2012 13:07 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. The University of Chicago Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literatures. http://www.jstor.org The American Journal of SEMITIC LANGUAGES AND LITERATURES Volume LVIII JANUARY 1941 Number 1 PRE-ISLAMIC ARAB QUEENS NABIA ABBOTT Arab queens make their first recorded appearance in history with the dramatic entry of the Queen of Sheba and her historic visit to King Solomon in the tenth century before Christ. The familiar bibli- cal version of her story leaves the enterprising queen unnamed and the location of her kingdom within Arabia uncertain. But it depicts her as endowed with wealth, power, knowledge if not wisdom, and curios- ity. It furthermore started her on her way to recognition in three great world-faiths. Her story soon captured the imagination of the entire Near East. Fascinating legends, varied by Jewish, Abyssinian, Arab, and Iranian fancies, grew and multiplied about her. These, though they surrounded her with romance and supernatural powers, left her free from neither scandal nor folly. Thus did this unnamed Arab queen, referred to in the Bible and Qur:In simply as the "Queen of Sheba" and "Queen of Saba:," respectively, come in time to acquire several names and to be known as the consort of Solomon the Great and the ancestress, if not the foundress, of two dynasties-the Him- yars of South Arabia and the recently ended imperial line of Abyssinia. Western Christendom too fell under her spell. European story-tellers juggled the elements of the numerous tales to suit their own fancy, while medieval artists, not to be outdone, told her story in stone. Thus, even today, one may gaze on a statue of the Queen of Sheba as she 1 2 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SEMITIC LANGUAGES stands between Solomon and Balaam in a triple carving that adorns the famous Chartres Cathedral in France.' Legend at last seems to have exhausted the variations of the age- long tale. But persistent and patient history still asks who was Solo- mon's Queen of Sheba and whence came she? To these questions no definite answers are as yet forthcoming. Her real name remains un- known, and her traditional South Arabian origin is seriously chal- lenged. Some still undiscovered or unread inscription, South Arabic or Assyrian, may one day solve her mystery. For our purpose here this colorful figure exemplifies the exercise of the right of independent queenship among the ancient Arabs at least as early as the tenth cen- tury before Christ. The first of the ancient Arabs to establish an independent state, it seems, were the Minaeans, whose rule, begun sometime in the last half of the second millennium, lasted to about 650 B.C., and whose kingdom in its heyday stretched from Southwest to Northwest Arabia. So far, no definite and unchallenged reference to a Minaean queen has come to light.2 However, by analogy with the contemporary Sabaeans it would not be at all surprising to find the Minaeans too had their queens. The next independent ancient Arab kingdom was that of the Sabaeans, who ruled from about the tenth century to 115 B.c. Tra- dition has for long laid the scene of their rise to political power in southwestern Arabia. More recently, however, the Assyrian inscrip- tions have been interpreted to mean that the Sabaeans first came into power in the northern Arabian regions and gradually pushed south- ward3 until in political leadership they displaced their earlier kinsmen, 1 To the references given in the Encyclopedia of Islam (EI), art. "Bil1kis," add Ibn Hishdm, Kitdb al-Tijdn (Hayderabad, 1928-29), pp. 137-63, and H. St. J. B. Philby, Sheba's Daughters (London, 1939), p. 1, frontispiece and pp. 10-14. 2 A North Minaean inscription was at one time thought to refer to a malkah Adbay. The malkah, rendered by Mtiller "queen," was later taken by others to mean "proprie- tress" and even "property"; the reading of "Adbay" was likewise questioned. Cf. D. H. Miiller, Epigraphische Denkmdler aus Arabien ("Denkschriften der philos.-hist. Classe der Kais. Akad. d. Wiss.," Vol. XXXVII [Wien, 1889]); Fritz Hommel, Aufsdtze und Abhandlungen (Munich, 1892), pp. 11 f.; J. H. Mordtmann, Beitrage zur Mindischen Epigraphik (Weimar, 1897), pp. vii and Nos. xxiv f.; Jaussen and Savignac, Mission archgologique en Arabe, I (Paris, 1909), 255-59; Rgpertoire d'gpigraphie simitique, Vol. VI, ed. Ryckmans (Paris, 1925), No. 3285. I am indebted to Professor Sprengling for the elimination from my list of "Queen Adbay" or Udbay, whom I had first known through James A. Montgomery, Arabia and the Bible (Philadelphia, 1934), p. 181. 3 Professor Sprengling, to whom I am indebted for the following reference, inclines strongly to this theory; cf. Fritz Hommel, Ethnologie und Geographie des alten Orients (Munich, 1926), pp. 142 f., 581 (n. 1). PRE-ISLAMIC ARAB QUEENS 3 the Minaeans, about 650 B.C. South Arabian inscriptions, numerous as they are, have not as yet thrown a clear light on these problems. Not only are they usually brief and fragmentary but a great many of them still await definitive publication if not decipherment. There is, therefore, much that is unknown and uncertain in the history and chronology of the Minaean and Sabaean kingdoms. So far as is now known no Arab queen, excepting the problematic Queen of Sheba, has been associated with the southern regions of these kingdoms. The case seems to be otherwise with the Minaeans and Sabaeans of the north, though here it is the Assyrian rather than the South Arabic in- scriptions that generally come to our aid. To begin with, there is the Queen of Sheba herself. Her visit to Solomon coincides with the emergence of the Sabaeans as a political power; and if this took place first in the northern Arab lands, as some factors seem to indicate at present, then the Queen of Sheba would be the first of a series of Arab queens some of whom were, like her, queens of Saba, that is, of the Sabaean lands and tribes of the North Arabian regions. The earliest Sabaean and Assyrian relations were in all probabilities friendly since it would be to the advantage of the former, then on the aggressive against the Minaeans, to have the good will if not the active support of the great empire to the northeast. However, as the Assyr- ian empire soon became a menace to the kingdoms on her western borders, the Sabaean and other Arabs seem to have sought, at times at least, protection through alliance with the smaller northern kingdoms. At any rate, the first reference to an Arab chief or king that the Assyr- ian records give us is in connection with the successful expedition of 854 B.C.undertaken by Shalmaneser III against Hadad-ezer, the king of Damascus, and the "twelve kings he brought to his support," among whom were Ahab the Israelite and "Gindibu the Arabian," with his thousand camel riders.4 A little more than a century later we begin to get several definite references to the Sabaeans and to a series of Arab kings and queens in the North Arabian territories. This was the heyday of the second Assyrian empire when some of its greatest kings initiated a new wave of imperial expansion at the expense of the smaller kingdoms to the 4 Alois Musil, Arabia deserta (New York, 1927), p. 477; Daniel David Luckenbill, Ancient Records of Assyria and Babylonia (Chicago, 1926-27), I, 223. 4 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SEMITIC LANGUAGES west. Thus were these put on the defensive against the dreaded foe and driven into one another's arms for political and military alliance against the common enemy. It is in such circumstances that the As- syrian records give us our first historical glimpses of several Arab queens. The first of these is Zabibi, who is mentioned in a long list of inde- pendent rulers that were subjugated by Tiglath-pileser III (745-727 B.C.) and forced to pay tribute to him in 738.5 Though listed as queen of the Arabian land, the locality of her kingdom within Arabia is not specified. The probabilities are that it centered around the oasis of DiMmatal-Gandal in the North Arabian desert, where presently we have another Arab queen, the Sabaean Samsi, probably Zabibi's suc- cessor, facing the wrath of the same Tiglath-pileser in 732. Samsi was accused of breaking a great oath sworn by the god Shamash whose name she bore.6 This is evidently to be interpreted as violating a polit- ical agreement of some sort with Assyria. Perhaps her aid to the king of Damascus in his losing fight against Assyria was the excuse for Tiglath-pileser's open war on the Arab queen. She proved no match for her powerful enemy.
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