Sheba

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WESTERN ARABIA AND THE SHEBA-MENELIK CYCLE
that Arabs and Israelites had a common origin in Arabia and evidence
exists from Sabaean and Minaen inscriptions (ca. 1000 B.C.E.) of
monotheism, a theological innovation usually associated with Judaism, but
which may have evolved from a local pagan cult. During Muhammad’s
time, there was evidence of a monotheist Arab faith associated with
Abraham. Margoliouth, nevertheless, remained unconvinced of a
substantial Old Testament Jewish political presence in Yemen, stating that
if “a Jewish kingdom ever held sway in South Arabia, it left little
impression on the North Arabian mind.”
A reason for this may have been the failure of the Israelite kingdoms.
The Old Testament is the work of a priestly hierarchy supporting a political
state and a divine mission. By the end of the Old Testament this hierarchy
was seriously disturbed at the seeming failure of the divine mission, the
destruction of the state, and the dispersal of its people (ten of the twelve
tribes are forever “lost”). Yet even during the zenith of political fortunes it
was clear that the Israelite religion and hierarchy did not receive
overwhelming popular support. The population was conquered and its
religions suppressed, but their pressure was still strong. Solomon tried to
win support from his diverse subjects, who hated his high taxes, by seeking
to accommodate their religious beliefs, and contracting numerous dynastic
marriages, but his legacy soon collapsed and the united monarchy, wracked
by dynastic quarrels and external aggression, split into two and, after Omri,
were never again of significance up until their destruction by the Assyrians
and Babylonians. In contrast, Sheba’s Yemeni realm and the Aksumite
kingdom continued to prosper and remained highly respected in Arabia
until the advent of Islam.
Any Israelite kingdom intrinsically linked to a briefly triumphant
exclusive Hebrew elite claiming God’s divine favor could not serve as a
model for an Arab state so long as the divine message was for Jews alone,
who, after Ezra, made conversion a difficult process. The Old Testament
very much reflects the views of the priestly class and the court circle and
cannot be accepted as the outlook of the population as a whole. From their
point of view the Israelite states were the creation of unpopular foreign
invaders with a over demanding alien religion. It is most probable that
when Judah was overwhelmed and its leadership deported, the population
as a whole did not regret it.
The first academic to suggest a long-established Israelite presence in
Arabia was Reinhart Dozy in his book Die Israeiliten zu Mekka von
David’s Zeit (1864). Dozy believed that Mecca and other major western