Surah Saba, Sheba

Surah 34 · 54 verses · revealed at Mecca

Saba is named after a people in the Yemen whose country the Qur'an describes as two gardens, one to the right and one to the left, and tells them to eat of their Lord's provision and be thankful.

They were not, and the surah records what followed: the bursting of the dam that had watered them, the gardens replaced by bitter fruit and thorn, and a prosperous land broken into stories that people told afterwards. The ruins of the dam at Marib are still there.

Around this the surah deals with David and Solomon — iron made soft for one, the wind and the working of jinn given to the other — and with Solomon's death, which the surah says went unnoticed by those working for him until a creature of the earth ate through his staff.

Much of the rest is argument with the Meccans about wealth. They had said that they were richer and therefore more favoured, and the surah answers that neither wealth nor children bring anyone nearer to God, and that provision is widened and narrowed for reasons that are not a verdict.

It also contains a scene in which the weak say to those who were arrogant that it was their scheming night and day that kept them from believing, and the arrogant answer back, and neither is excused.

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