Sheba

72
THE QUEEN OF SHEBA
The queen then tries to buy Solomon off with tribute, but this angers him,
for Solomon insists that wealth is not his purpose; only her and her
subjects’ abandonment of sun-worship and submission to the One True
God. The queen then obeys him by coming in person to pay homage.
The Targum Sheni to the book of Esther, the Qur’an, and Muslim
traditions all speak of Solomon’s gift of conversing with and controlling
animals, birds, insects, reptiles, jinn, and the winds; they state that it was
the hoopoe that first brought the Queen of Sheba to Solomon’s attention
and later acted as a messenger between them.
It is possible that an ancient oral tradition spoke not of a bird but of a
scout or water diviner. As the meaning of words changed over the years
however, the word became associated with the hoopoe in the same way as
the Old Testament prescription that the prophet Elijah was fed in the desert
by ravens (rbm) when Arabs (also rbm) would seem to make more sense.
As already mentioned, the Queen of Sheba has been linked with Dhu
Sharkh ibn Hudad and al-Hadhad ibn Sharah ibn Dhu Sahar so maybe the
Arabic word for hoopoe, hudhud, has been confused with earlier partially
comprehended oral or unvocalized written traditions. Of course, it may just
be that there was no confusion at all, and that the hoopoe story was
advanced as an example of Solomon’s magical powers. Whatever the basis
of the hoopoe story, in all Islamic traditions Solomon was attracted to
Sheba because of its wealth, the beauty of its queen, and its ignorance of
the One True God.
According to the Targum Sheni Solomon was hosting visiting rulers
and decided to entertain them with a parade of the zoological and
supernatural elements of his army. The hoopoe was missing and Solomon,
in anger, promised severe retribution for the bird. The hoopoe eventually
reappeared and begged for mercy, saying that in the east it had found a
fabulous realm ruled by a queen whose inhabitants did not possess bows
and arrows, let alone understand or practice warfare. Solomon sent the
hoopoe back to the queen’s capital of Kitor with a letter demanding she
submit to his authority. The queen, a sun-worshipper, became confused and
tore her clothes in despair when the hoopoe and an accompanying host of
other birds blocked the sun’s rays. In the confusion the hoopoe landed in
her room, and when the queen noticed the letter attached to its wing, she
removed it and read its contents: