034- SABAʾ
SHEBA
Sabaʾ
Sabaʾ is a Makkan sūrah, although some scholars maintain that v. 6 is from the Madinan period. It takes its name from the mention of the story of Sheba in vv. 15–21. Although some relate the story here to the queen of Sheba mentioned in 27:22–44, it more likely refers to a tribe in the same region of Yemen from later times. When asked, “O Messenger of God, what is Sheba, a land or a woman?” the Prophet is reported to have replied, “Neither a land nor a woman, but a man who had ten Arab sons, six of whom he regarded auspicious and four inauspicious”.
The beginning of this sūrah, with the mention of God’s Praise and Omnipotence, can be seen as following upon the mention of the Trust in the second to last verse of the previous surah. Such praise reiterates God’s complete independence of those who carry the Trust and those who neglect to carry it, thus emphasizing that those who carry the Trust do so to their own benefit, while those who neglect to carry it do so to their own detriment; they do not do so for God, because all praise is already His.
After the first two verses reaffirming the Nature of God, Sabaʾ launches into its primary subject, a critique of the disbelievers that emphasizes the vacuity of their claims (vv. 3–9). Brief allusions to the accomplishments of the prophets David (vv. 10–11) and Solomon (vv. 12–14) are then followed by a discussion of the people of Sheba, whose arrogance at their good fortune led them to be destroyed by a flood (vv. 15–19). Two verses regarding the nature of Iblīs (vv. 20–21) then segue into a series of challenges the Prophet Muhammad is told to pose to the disbelievers (vv. 22–30). An account of the discussion described as taking place sometime in the Hereafter between the leaders among the disbelievers and those who followed them in rejecting the prophets (vv. 31–33) then leads into a critique of those whose wealth, power, and social status delude them into believing they are arbiters of truth (vv. 34–45). This is followed by injunctions to the Prophet Muhammad to clarify the nature of his mission (vv. 46–50), which transitions into a concluding section on the consequences that will befall the disbelievers (vv. 51–54).
(source: “The Study Quran” a new translation and commentary by Seyyed Hossein Nasr)
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John Doe
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