Saba (Sheba)

15. “Indeed there was a sign for the (people of) Sheba in their abode, two gardens in the right and the left; ‘Eat of the sustenance of your Lord and give thanks to Him (that you have) a pure city and a forgiving Lord’.”

Saba is the name of the cultivated land of Yemen. This name, Saba, had been the name of a great personality in that region that was chosen for this land.

The biography of this country is instructive.

After the statement of the great bounties that Allah had bestowed on David and Solomon and that these two Divine prophets acted on the duty of thanksgiving, in this holy verse there has been referred to another nation who were in a state opposite to them and they lived perhaps in the same time with them or a little after them.

They were some people whom Allah granted kinds of blessings, but they paved the way of disbelief and, consequently, Allah negated His blessings from them. Then, they became so scattered and wandered that the story of their life became a gazing-stock for the people of the world. This nation was the people of Saba.

The Glorious Qur’an has stated their instructive biography in five verses and it has pointed to some important details and specialties of their life in these few verses.

At first, it says:

“Indeed there was a sign for the (people of) Sheba in their abode…”

As we will see later, this great Divine sign originated from here that those people by utilizing the particular spatial conditions and situation of the mountains around that region, in addition to the abundant God-given talent of those people, they could control the floods, which had no result save destruction, behind a strong dam, by which they succeeded to build a very habitable country.

What a great sign it is that a means of destruction is changed into the most important means of development.

The historians are divided in the belief that “Saba” is whose name and what it is. The popular idea is that ‘Saba” is the name of the father of Arabs of Yemen.

According to a tradition narrated from the Messenger of Islam (S), there was a man by the name of Saba, from whom ten children were born, and from every one of them a tribe from the tribes of Arabs came into being in that land.38

Some believe that “Saba” is the name of the land of Yemen, or a part of it. The apparent meaning of the Qur’an in the story of Solomon and hoopoe in Surah An-Naml also shows that ‘Saba” had been the name of a place, where it says: “…and I have come to you from Sheba with a sure tiding.”39 The situation here is that the apparent of the verse under discussion shows that “Saba” had been a group of people who lived in that region, because the plural masculine pronoun /hum/ has returned to them.

But there is not any inconsistency between these two commentaries, because it may be that at first Saba had been the name of a person, then all his offspring and his tribe were entitled by that name, and later this name was also used for their land.

Then the Qur’an refers to the explanation of this Divine sign which was given to the people of Saba. It says:

“…two gardens in the right and the left…”

The story was such that the people of Saba, by building a great dam between the magnificent mountains of that region, could store the water of the numerous floods, which caused only destruction or at least were wasted in the deserts vainly, at the back of that great dam, and by creating some windows in the dam they could take the vast store of water behind it under their own control.

Thus, they succeeded to plant and grow different things in the vast lands over there. Fakhr-i-Razi has cited a problem here, saying that the existence of “two gardens” is not an important thing which can be referred to as ‘a sign’.

In our opinion basically this problem is not something worthy to be discussed, because they were not two ordinary simple gardens, but they were a series of gardens joined together at two sides of a great stream which were watered from that lofty dam.

These gardens were so bountiful of fruits and blessed that, as history indicates, if a person would put a large basket on his head and at the season of fruit, he passed under these trees there he could pour so much fruit in it that after a short time the basket would be filled with fruits.

Is it not wonderful that a flood which is the source of destruction becomes the cause of cultivation? Is it not counted as a sign of Allah? In addition, an extraordinary security existed in that land which itself was counted one of the signs of Allah. This fact will later be referred to by the Qur’an.

Then the verse says that Allah told them as follows:

“…Eat of the sustenance of your Lord and give thanks to Him (That you have) a pure city and a forgiving Lord’.”

This short sentence has reiterated a collection of material and spiritual bounties in the most beautiful form.

From the point of material bounties, they had a pure and clean land. It was clean from the various pollutions: from thieves and unjust people, from pests and afflictions, from draught and famine, and from insecurity and terror.

It has even been said that their land was clean from harmful insects, too. Their town had a clean air, a pleasant enlivening breeze, and a fertile land with productive trees.

From the point of spiritual bounty, they had the forgiveness of Allah. He would dispense with their short comings and faults and He did not punish them and He did not involve their land in misfortune.