Sheba

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136 WESTERN ARABIA AND THE SHEBA-MENELIK CYCLE logical conclusions, a flexibility continued by his successors when they developed the Islamic code of law, the Sharia. One legislative innovation struck a crippling blow not only to the inspirational example of the Queen of Sheba but also to the status and aspirations of millions of women thereafter. According to the Arab historian al-Tha’labi, Muhammad despised women rulers, 7 despite the assistance, advice, and financial backing of Khadija and the presence of Arab queens. The rise of Islam followed the pattern of much earlier states, condemning women to an inferior role through Holy Writ. In his revelations Muhammad never heard a voice. He interpreted visions and feelings, ascribing them to divine inspiration. Sura 4:34 of the Qur’an declares: Men have authority over women because God has made one superior to the other, and because they spend their wealth to maintain them. The same Sura gives permission for men to use violence against women, the only instance in sacred texts: Good women are obedient. They guard their unseen parts because God has guarded them. As for those whom you fear disobedience, admonish them and send them to their beds apart and beat them. Reinhart Dozy (see below) suggests that Jews came to Mecca during the days of the Babylonian exile and established an Israelite cult in Mecca, which explains why they differed from the postexilic New Jerusalem community. The Arabs themselves believed that Abraham was linked to the Islamic sacred shrine of the Ka’bah, and that the Israelites had a very early association with Arabia. Charles Cutler Torrey dismissed these traditions as “fanciful tales ... all worthless for our purpose.” Khaybar has always possessed a large African population. This has been ascribed to slavery, but it is more probable that the area was from early times inhabited by an African people. The Hebrew word for African and Samaritan is the same – kushi – so the high percentage of African Jews in Khaybar may support the contention that the Khaybar Jews were a remnant of the northern (Samaritan) kingdom of Israel. Medina to the south, also a center for urban and desert Jews, had an ancient Egyptian origin (Yathrib), which may add weight to the argument that the Hebrew captivity took place in an Egyptian colony not in Africa itself. Spencer Trimingham summarizes the theories surrounding the origins of Hijaz Jews:
QUEEN OF SHEBA AND BIBLICAL SCHOLARSHIP 137 The question as to whether they derived from arabized Jews, descendants of immigrants, or were judaized Arabs, has not been satisfactorily resolved. But it is clear that the outlook and social organization of the Jews settled in these oasis communities was quite different from that of Aramaic-speaking Jews in Babylonia. .... if they were originally Arabs, any consciousness of relationship had evaporated in consequence of their having absorbed a Jewish exclusivist outlook. Behind most of the theories on the origins of the Arabian Jews is the preconception that Palestine was the location of the Old Testament. This is understandable given that it is only since the 1990s that demographic studies and comprehensive archaeological surveys have revealed that ancient Palestine could not possibly have sustained the high culture and economy of Ancient Judah and Israel. Torrey dismissed Arab traditions that Mecca could have been settled by Israelites in Old Testament times, because he could only envisage Jewish influence in late Old Testament times, moving south from Palestine to the settlements of Hijaz - Taima, Khaybar, and Yathrib (Medina) - whereas it is possible that they had been in the Mecca-Medina area since the time of Moses. Another school of thought suggests that Hijaz Jews were descendants of Yemeni Jews. Although genetically they are identical to Yemeni Arabs, the Yemeni Jews have several traditions about their origin. One story states that some Hebrew rebelled against Moses and fled to Yemen. Their descendants told the Queen of Sheba of Solomon’s wisdom. A second account states the Yemeni Jews are descendants of Israelites whom Solomon sent to Sheba, while others say their ancestors left Judah fortytwo years before the destruction of the First Temple and spurned the prophet Ezra’s call to return to rebuild it, foreseeing further torment. Finally, one tradition says the Yemeni Jews are descendants of Jews who fled from Palestine after the two uprisings against Roman rule that were brutally crushed in the first and second centuries A.D. If the latter story is true it would be logical to see a tapered pattern of Jewish settlement stretching from Palestine through the Arabian peninsula with larger settlements closer to Palestine. Torrey summarized the frustrating evidence “The investigator is disappointed by the scarcity of Israelites in one place [northern and central Arabia], and scandalized by their apparent multitude in the other [Yemen]”. Torrey concluded that “In the absence of a plausible theory of extensive immigration, the hypothesis of converted Arab tribes seemed the only recourse.” Others have disagreed. Margoliouth believed
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Queen of Sheba and Biblical Scholar
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QUEEN OF SHEBA AND BIBLICAL SCHOLAR
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CHAPTER ONE Sheba, Zionism, and the
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CHAPTER TWO The Search for Evidence
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CHAPTER THREE Writing the Old Testa
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Sheba

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