Footnote 4 The Quranic story is short, condensed, and inconclusive regarding their ultimate fate, leaving much to the imagination of generation after generation of individuals to construct and reconstruct it according to the sensibilities of their time and culture. This sura is composed of ninety-four ayahs (verses), in which verses twenty through forty-four include the mesmerizing story of the fateful encounter between King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. The Quranic version of the story of the Queen of Sheba is part of Sura 27, known as al-Naml, meaning “the Ant.” It belongs to the middle group of Meccan suras (Pickthal Reference Pickthaln.d., 272) and was revealed to the Prophet nine years after he claimed prophecy (Rahnema Reference Rahnema1974, 189–229). Only in the Kebra Nagast, the revered Ethiopian book of kings, is she named, as Makida (Wallis Budge 2007). The story of the encounter between King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba appears in the three Abrahamic scriptures but none identifies her by name.
Who was the Queen of Sheba, and why did Solomon wish to attack her paradisaical “Garden”? His message was brief: “Be ye not arrogant against me, but come to me in submission” (Qurʾan 27:31) that is, submit or be destroyed. He sent his spy/messenger bird, the little hoopoe ( hudhud), to the queen armed with a letter and instructed the bird to wait for her reply. When Solomon heard of the sovereign Queen of Sheba, much to his astonishment, he immediately set out to conquer this “last kingdom not yet under his control.” Footnote 2 He did not need to take his extraordinary army of demons, ʿifrits, and shaytans, jinns Footnote 3 (genies) and humans, birds and beasts flying on the wings of the wind. Whenever he heard of a king in any part of the world, he would come to him, weaken him, and subdue him.” Footnote 1 He would load “people, draft animals, weapons of war, everything” on carved wood, and command “the violent wind to enter under the wood and raise it up” and “the light breeze” to carry them – the distance of a month in one night to wherever he wished (Lassner Reference Lassner1993, 171 see also Qurʾan 34:12, 38:36–39). King of the world, Solomon was a “warfaring man” and “a very good conqueror who rarely rested from invading. The story of the Queen of Sheba climaxes with King Solomon’s threat to conquer her paradisaical oasis and usurp her Mighty Throne. Her leadership is an example of desirable leadership, regardless of gender, that values negotiation over domination, peace over war and destruction. I focus on what the story tells us about women and political authority, about the queen’s leadership and charisma, her wisdom and genuine concern for her people’s lives, in her sustained diplomatic efforts to negotiate peace with a much stronger and uncompromising adversary.
The queen’s brilliant diplomacy and successful peace-making initiatives to avert certain war were not utmost in the minds of the patriarchal exegetes, but rather the control of this “haughty” – read autonomous – woman’s body, and the restriction of her mobility and sexuality through marriage.
But in its medieval reconstructions, gender politics takes center stage. The queen’s gender is immaterial to her leadership and governance her faith is at the center of the Quranic revelations. This chapter argues that God’s concern is not with the queen’s marital status, nor with arranging a marriage for the fabulous pair. The Quranic revelations concerning the sovereignty of the Queen of Sheba and her encounter with King Solomon are juxtaposed with the latter’s fanciful reconstructions by medieval Muslim biographers.
0 kommentar(er)
