Sabaʾ

Sabaʾ, tribe settled in the central lowlands of Yemen, which evolved into the Sabaean kingdom in the early 1st mill. BCE. Its centre was the oasis of Maʾrib. The constituents of Sabaean identity were the use of Sabaic, a Semitic language written in the South Semitic alphabet, and the worshipping of the god Almaqah, tutelary deity of its pantheon.

Sabaʾ — a kingdom

For most of the 1st millennium BCE, the tribe of Sabaʾ (Sab. S¹bʾ; Ar. Sabaʾ) is indissociable from the kingdom of Sabaʾ. Sabaʾ appears in the early South Arabian epigraphical records from the 8th cent. BCE onwards. Centred around the cities of Maʾrib (Mryb) and Ṣirwāḥ (Ṣrwḥ), its territory extended to the Wādī al-Juba to the south and the Wādī Raghwān and Wādī al-Jawf to the north, in the inner lowlands of Yemen.

The Sabaeans soon gained ascendancy over the competing South Arabian kingdoms and played a prominent part in the development of the trans-Arabian caravan trade, in alliance with the North Arabian people from Taymāʾ (Job 6:19; Cavigneaux & Ismail BaM 21: text n. 2). After Tiglatpileser III had eliminated the Aramean states and annexed Damascus, aromatics conveyed by Sabaean caravans flowed into Mesopotamia, through the Southern Levant (Jer 6:20, Is 60:6), trade being secured by a tribute paid to the Assyrian kings (ARAB I 778, 799). The royal inscriptions of Sargon II (late 8th cent. BCE) mention the tribute brought by It’amra/Ithamar the Sabaean (ARAB II 18, 55); those of Sennacherib (early 7th cent. BCE) the tribute of Karibi-ilu king of Saba (ARAB II 440). They are respectively identified as Yathaʿʾamar Watār and Karibʾīl Watār, mukarribs [federators] of Sabaʾ, based on the accounts of their reigns found in the temple of Almaqah in Ṣirwāḥ (DAI Ṣirwāḥ 2005-50; RES 3945). They were both town builders who fortified cities, and gained control over most of South Arabia thanks to a network of tribal alliances, tribal brotherhood, and extensive conquests (Nebes 2016).

After the end of the 6th century BCE, Sabaʾ shrank to its initial core, from Maʾrib and Ṣirwāḥ to al-Bayḍāʾ (ancient Nashq), in the central lowlands of Yemen, as a repercussion of the rise of the competing kingdoms of Qatabān and Ḥaḍramawt (MuB 673), and the rivalry of caravans from the kingdom of Maʿīn (B-L Nashq; RES 3022). The rulers lost the title of mukarrib, replaced by that of king (mlk), and their inscriptions are limited to the commemoration of religious and hydraulic constructions (Ja 551; RES 3903). Significantly, in his account of the Roman military expedition led by Aelius Gallus in South Arabia (26/25 BCE), Strabo (Geog. 16, 4, 24) does not even mention the name of Sabaʾ; the Sabaean king is described as the ruler of the Rhammanites, from the tribe of Raymān, a fraction of Sabaʾ. A few years later, the growing kingdom of Ḥimyar seized control of the kingdom of Sabaʾ for the first time. After this unification, the Himyarite kings held the title of ‘king of Sabaʾ and dhu-Raydān’. This subjugation lasted more than a century (see Peripl. M. Rubr. 23). During most of the 2nd cent. CE, tribal rulers (qayl) from the northern highlands of Yemen disputed the title of ‘king of Sabaʾ and dhu-Raydān’ with the Himyarites (Bron 2002; Arbach et al. 2020). From ca. 160 CE onwards, these tribal rulers instigated a Sabaean Renaissance dominated by highland tribes. The kings came from the highland tribes (Radmān-and-Khawlān; Ghaymān; Ḥāshid and Ḥumlān), and the counterpart of Maʾrib, the city of Ṣanʿāʾ (Ṣnʿw) rose to the rank of second capital on the highlands. After final confrontations in ca. 270-75 CE (MAFRAY-al-Miʿsal 5, CIH 353), and despite the resistance of the Sabaean aristocracy (Arbach & Schiettecatte 2015), Ḥimyar eventually took over Sabaʾ. This annexation marks the final end of a Sabaean political entity. The name of Sabaʾ lived on until the mid-6th cent. CE in the title borne by the Himyarite sovereign (king of Sabaʾ, dhu-Raydān, Ḥaḍramawt and Yamanat), contributing to its legitimacy. It also survived in the name of the tribe Sabaʾ Kahlān, the tribe of the inhabitants of Maʾrib (see below).

Sabaʾ — a tribe

As its territory expanded, the community of Sabaʾ soon evolved into a confederation of tribes organized into a hierarchy, the kingdom of Sabaʾ. However, throughout the 1300 years of its existence (ca. 800 BCE – 600 CE), within the Sabaean kingdom, Sabaʾ itself designated a changing reality (Robin 1996).

At the time of the mukarribs of Sabaʾ (8th-6th cent. BCE), Sabaʾ was a community made up of the dominant clans mainly settled in Marib, along the course of the Wādī Dhana and its surroundings, with Almaqah as its tutelary deity. It also designated the territory of this political entity (Robin 1996: 1091–95). A pact of union claimed under the aegis of the god ʿAthtar dhu-Dibān, in the temple of Jabal al-Lawdh, united this community of Sabaʾ with the other constituents of the Sabaean state (Robin 1996: 1095–1096).

From the 5th century BCE onwards, Sabaean domination over South Arabia ceased and Sabaʾ lost its paramount position. It was progressively relegated to the role of a standard tribe, Sabaʾ-and-Fayshān, in a federation of tribes composing the kingdom (e.g., RES 2980 bis: ʾs²ʿb S¹bʾ, “the tribes of Sabaʾ”). The other prominent constituents of this federation included Ṣirwāḥ (e.g., RES 3951), Bakīl (e.g., CIH 126), and Samʿī (e.g., RES 4176). The tribe of Sabaʾ-and-Fayshān was headed by a king (mlk); the other tribes recognized the authority of a qayl (tribal leader) who pledged allegiance to the king. The tribe of Sabaʾ-and-Fayshān probably corresponded to the gathering of the old Sabaean aristocracy, Sabaʾ, settled in Marib (Maʾrib), Nashq (al-Bayḍāʾ) and Nashshān (al-Sawdāʾ), and the other subjects, Fayshān, mostly settled in parts of the highlands, not subjected to the authority of a qayl, i.e., mostly Ṣanʿāʾ and its surroundings (Robin 1996: 1102).

From the 1st cent. CE onwards, the nisba ‘Sabaeans’ (Asbūʾān, ʾs¹bʾⁿ, e.g., CIH 599, Ja 643) also appears to refer to the old Sabaean aristocracy (Robin 1996: 1105).

After the annexation of the kingdom of Sabaʾ by Ḥimyar, in ca. 275 CE, Sabaʾ lost its royal status. From then on, the tribe is most often named Sabaʾ Kahlān (S¹bʾ Khlⁿ, e.g., Ja 653). It was limited to the community of free citizens of the city of Marib (actual Maʾrib): “the tribe of Sabaʾ, the inhabitants of (the town of) Marib” (Ir 32: s²ʿbⁿ S¹bʾ ʾbʿl Mrb; RES 3910: s²ʿbn S¹bʾ ʾbʿl hgrn Mrb).

The final mention of Sabaʾ in the South Arabian sources is in the royal inscription of Abraha in Maʾrib (CIH 541), when the inhabitants of the oasis called on the king for help after the rupture of the Marib dam.

Sabaʾ in the Bible

In the Bible, Sheba is a region associated with Dedān (Gn. x, 7; xxv, 3; I Ch i, 9, 32), Tēmāʾ (Jb vi, 19) and Raʿmah (Ez xxvii, 22 – see Ragmat), or a kingdom headed by a queen (I R x, 1-13; II Ch ix, 1-12 – see Queen of Sheba). It traded gold and aromatics (Ez xxvii, 22; I R x, 2, 10, Ps lxxii, 15, Jr vi, 20; Is lx, 6) by means of caravans (Is lx, 6; Jb vi, 19; I R x, 2) (Briend 1996).

Although the Bible never precisely locates Sheba, there is no doubt that it corresponds to the South Arabian caravan kingdom of Sabaʾ, considering the association of Taymāʾ and Sabaʾ in Assyrian sources (Cavigneaux & Ismail BaM 21: text n. 2; ARAB I 799), of Sabaʾ and Dadan in the Sabaic inscription B-L Nashq and the destruction of Ragmat by Sabaʾ in the Sabaic inscription RES 3943.

Sabaʾ in the Koran and Ibn al-Kalbī’s genealogy

The testimony of Sabaʾ appears twice in the Koran: implicitly in Sūra 27 where the visit of a queen to king Solomon is deemed to be that of the queen of Sabaʾ by drawing a parallel with the Old Testament; and explicitly in Sūra 34 entitled Sabaʾ, alluding to the prosperity of the oasis of Maʾrib and referring to the rupture of its dam.

In the work of the genealogist Ibn al-Kalbī, Sabaʾ is the third descendant of Qaḥṭān, the ancestor of the Southern Arabs (Caskel 1966 I: tab. 176, II: 31 ). The filiation of Sabaʾ includes Kahlān, the former epithet of the tribe of Sabaʾ (late 3rd–early 6th cent. CE), Raydān, the former lineage of the Himyarite kings mentioned in the royal title (1st–6th cent. CE), and Ḥimyar, who is no more than an ancestor among others. The genealogy does not reflect the paramount role of this kingdom on the eve of Islam. This genealogical work is an allegorical construction defining ties between distant ancestors on the basis of the vague recollection of former geographical proximities and political alliances (Robin 2013: 215–216).

Confusions

It is highly unlikely that Sabaʾ can be identified with the biblical Seba (Gn x, 7; Is xliii, 3; xlv, 14), written with a samech, and not a šin. This latter region is located in the south of Egypt (Briend 1996).

In the same way, Sabaeans should not be confused with the religious communities of the Sabians of Southern Iraq or with the Sabians of Harran, a transcription of the Arabic ṣābiʾūn which derives from ṣabā (“to turn towards”), with a ṣād, and not a sīn.

Jérémie Schiettecatte

References and suggested reading

Sources

• Cavigneaux & Ismail BaM 21: text n. 2: iv 26-39: Cavigneaux, A. & B.Kh. Ismail. 1990. Die Statthalter von Suḫu und Mari im 8. Jh. v. Chr. BaM 21: 321–456.
• ARAB I: Luckenbill, D.D. 1926. Ancient Records of Assyria and Babylonia. Volume I. Historical records of Assyria, from the earliest times to Sargon. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
• ARAB II: Luckenbill, D.D. 1927. Ancient Records of Assyria and Babylonia. Volume II. Historical records of Assyria, from Sargon to the end. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
• Peripl. M. Rubr.: Casson, L. 1989. The Periplus Maris Erythraei. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
• Strabo, Geography, book 16: Seubert, P. 2020. Du Tigre au Nil, la Syrie et l’Arabie de Strabon : édition, traduction et commentaire du livre XVI de la Géographie. PhD, Paris: Sorbonne Université.

Studies

• Arbach, M. & J. Schiettecatte 2015. De la diplomatie et de l’aristocratie tribale du royaume de Sabaʾ d’après une inscription du IIIe siècle de l’ère chrétienne CRAI 2015: 371–398. DOI: 10.3406/crai.2015.95521.
• Arbach, M., J. Schiettecatte & M. al-Hajj 2020. The kingdom of Sabaʾ in the second century CE — A reassessment, in C. Darles & M. Arbach (eds) Arabie du Sud et Corne de l’Afrique. Echanges et relations de l’Âge du Bronze à l’avènement de l’Islam. Sites et Cités d’Afrique. Toulouse: Presses Universitaires du Midi.
• Briend, J. 1996. Sheba. I. Dans la Bible. Supplément au Dictionnaire de la Bible fasc. 70: 1043–1046.
• Bron, F. 2002. La crise du royaume de Saba’ au IIe s. de notre ère Orientalia 71–4: 417–423.
• Caskel, W. 1966. Ǧamharat an-nasab. Das genealogische Werk des Hišam Ibn Muḥammad al-Kalbī. 2 vols. Leiden: E.J. Brill.
• Nebes, N. 2016. Der Tatenbericht des Yiṯaʿʾamar Watar bin Yakrubmalik aus Ṣirwāḥ (Jemen). Zur Geschichte Südarabiens im frühen 1. Jahrtausend vor Christus (EFAH 7). Tübingen: E. Wasmuth.
• Robin, C.J. 1996. Sheba. II. Dans les inscriptions d’Arabie du sud Supplément au Dictionnaire de la Bible fasc. 70: 1043–1254.
• Robin, C.J. 2013. Matériaux pour une prosopographie de l’Arabie antique, in C.J. Robin & J. Schiettecatte (eds) Les préludes de l’Islam: ruptures et continuités dans les civilisations du Proche-Orient, de l’Afrique orientale, de l’Arabie et de l’Inde à la veille de l’Islam: 127–270 (O&M, 11). Paris: De Boccard.

_{Alternate spellings: Sheba, Saba’, Saba, Sabean, Sabeans, Sabaean, Sabaeans, Sabaic}