Bilqis, the Queen of Sheba

Also Known As: also Balqis, Belqis; Arabic بلقيس; the name is not in the Quran and was supplied by later commentators, and it may go back to a Greek or Hebrew word for a concubine
Region/Culture: West Asia/Middle East
Mythos: Arabic Mythology, Islamic Mythology
Primary Type/Nature: Heroes and Mortals
Mythical Attributes: Bilqis is the sun-worshipping queen of Sheba, owner of a mighty throne, who in later legend is the daughter of a jinn mother.
Role in Mythos: She is the ruler whom Solomon summons by a letter carried by a hoopoe, and who ends the story by submitting to the God of Solomon.
Relation to Humans: Bilqis rules her people with care, asks her chiefs for advice and chooses a gift over a war to protect her cities. In Arabic and Persian storytelling she became the model of a wise queen, though the legends also set tests to prove she was fully human.

A small crested bird drops out of the sky over a southern kingdom with a letter. It lets the letter fall and flies off a little way to watch. The woman who picks it up is a queen, and when she has read it she calls her chiefs together and says, in a level voice, that a noble letter has been delivered to her. It is from Solomon. It opens in the name of God, the gracious, the merciful, and then it tells her people not to set themselves above him and to come to him in submission.

This is how the Quran brings her onto the stage, in the chapter called the Ant. The story had begun a few lines earlier with Solomon reviewing his birds and finding the hoopoe missing. He threatened to punish it. The hoopoe came back with an excuse good enough to save its neck: it had been to Sheba and found a woman ruling there, given everything a ruler could want, seated on a mighty throne. She and her people bowed to the sun.

The Quran never gives her a name. She is only a woman who rules them. The name Bilqis was supplied later, by commentators such as al-Tabari, al-Zamakhshari and al-Baydawi, and after them it was the only name anyone used. Where it came from is not settled. One suggestion traces it to a Greek word for a concubine, by way of Hebrew, which would be an odd title for a woman who sat on a throne in her own right.

What the Quran does give her is a mind. Her chiefs answer the letter like soldiers. They are strong, they say, and ready for war, and the decision is hers. She is not flattered. Kings, she tells them, ruin a city when they enter it and bring its proud people low. So she will send this king a present and see what her envoys bring back. It is the plainest piece of statecraft in the whole story. A king who can be bought is only a king.

Solomon cannot be bought. He sends the gift back with the remark that what God has given him is better, and he promises armies that Sheba will not be able to face. Then, while she is on the road to him, he asks his court who can fetch her throne before she arrives. A powerful jinn, an ifrit, offers to bring it before Solomon rises from his seat. A man who has knowledge of the Book says he can do it in the blink of an eye, and it is there. Later writers usually name that man as Asaf son of Barkhiya, Solomon’s vizier. Solomon has the throne altered and waits.

When she arrives she is asked whether this is her throne. She looks at it and answers that it is as though it were the same. Then she is led to the palace. The floor of the hall is smooth glass, and it shines like deep water under the light. She takes it for a pool, gathers up her skirts and bares her legs to wade. Solomon tells her it is only a floor paved with glass. She says that she has wronged herself, and that she submits, with Solomon, to God, the Lord of the worlds. There the Quran leaves her.

The storytellers did not. They wanted to know who she was and why a prophet would build a glass floor to look at a woman’s legs. Their answer was that her mother was a jinn. A saying traced to Abu Hurayrah made her the child of a jinn and a human, and the collections of prophets’ tales took it up. In these versions the demons at Solomon’s court grow afraid that he will marry her, and they whisper that she is weak in the head and that her legs are hairy, with feet like the hooves of a donkey. The altered throne becomes a test of her wits, which she passes. The glass floor becomes a test of her legs. The feet turn out to be a woman’s feet, but the hair is real, and Solomon orders a depilatory paste made to take it off. The legend treats this as the invention of the thing.

On what came next the tellers split. Some say Solomon married her. Others say he gave her in marriage to a king of Hamdan, one of the Tubba rulers of Yemen, and sent her home. The Yemeni scholar al-Hamdani made her the daughter of a Sabaean king, Ilsharah Yahdib, with no jinn in the family. One account even reports that her body was found in a royal burial ground in the days of the caliph al-Walid.

Behind all of it stands an older and much shorter story. In the Hebrew Bible an unnamed queen of Sheba comes to Jerusalem with camels, spices and gold to try Solomon with hard questions, and goes home impressed. Ethiopia tells its own version, in which the queen is called Makeda and bears Solomon a son. Sheba itself was real: Saba, a kingdom of southern Arabia. No inscription found there has yet named a queen who went to see Solomon.

Her strength in the story is the kind that needs no magic. She commands armies and wealth, she takes counsel and overrules it, she sees through a threat and answers a trick question without lying or guessing. If the legend is believed she also carries jinn blood, though it gives her no spells. Her limits are as clear. Her throne can be lifted from a locked palace in an instant. A sheet of glass fools her eyes. And she is the one who has to travel.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who is Bilqis in Islamic tradition?

Bilqis is the name given in Islamic tradition to the Queen of Sheba, the ruler who visits Solomon in chapter 27 of the Quran. She is a sun-worshipping queen who receives a letter from Solomon, travels to his court and submits to God. The Quran does not name her, and the name Bilqis comes from later commentators such as al-Tabari.

Is the Queen of Sheba named in the Quran?

No. The Quran calls her only a woman who rules the people of Sheba. Commentators including al-Tabari, al-Zamakhshari and al-Baydawi later gave her the name Bilqis.

Was Bilqis the daughter of a jinn?

Later legend says that the mother of Bilqis was a jinn and her father was human. A saying traced to Abu Hurayrah makes this claim, and it passed into the popular tales of the prophets. The Quran says nothing of the kind, and the Yemeni scholar al-Hamdani made her the daughter of a Sabaean king named Ilsharah Yahdib.

Why did Solomon build a glass floor for the Queen of Sheba?

In the Quran, the queen mistakes the glass floor of Solomon’s palace for water and bares her legs to cross it, then submits to God. Later storytellers explained the floor as a test. Demons had told Solomon that Bilqis had hairy legs and donkey’s hooves, and the glass let him see for himself.

Did Solomon marry Bilqis?

The traditions disagree. Some say Solomon married Bilqis. Others say he gave her in marriage to a king of Hamdan in Yemen and sent her home.