Note 183 — TALE OF KING OMAR BIN AL-NU'UMAN AND HIS SONS SHARRKAN AND ZAU AL-MAKAN, AND WHAT BEFEL THEM OF THINGS SELD-SEEN AND PEREGRINE.[138]

And Solomon said, "O nobles, which of you will bring me her throne?" A terrible genius (i.e. an Ifrit of the Jinn named Dhakwan or the notorious Sakhr) said, "I will bring it unto thee before thou arise from thy seat (of justice); for I am able to perform it, and may be trusted" (Koran, xxvii. 38-39). Balkís or Bilkís (says the Durrat al-Ghawwás) daughter of Hozád bin Sharhabíl, twenty-second in the list of the rulers of Al-Yaman, according to some murdered her husband, and became, by Moslem ignorance, the Biblical "Queen of Sheba." The Abyssinians transfer her from Arabian Saba to Ethiopia and make her the mother by Solomon of Menelek, their proto-monarch; thus claiming for their royalties an antiquity compared with which all reigning houses in the world are of yesterday. The dates of the Tabábi'ah or Tobbas prove that the Bilkís of history ruled Al-Yaman in the early Christian era.