Surah An-Naml Verse 24

3266 The ancient religions of the people of Saba ' (the Himyar or Sabaeans) consisted in the worship of the heavenly bodies, the sun, the planets, and the stars. Possibly the cult was connected with that of Chaldea , the homeland of Abraham: see 6:75-79 and notes thereon. Yemen had easy access to Mesopotamia and the Persian Gulf by way of the sea, as well as with Abyssinia . That accounts for the Christians of Najran and the Jewish dynasty of kings (e.g., Dhu Nuwas, d. 525 A.C.) who persecuted them in the century before Islam-also for the Christian Abyssinian Governor Abrahah and his discomfiture in the year of the Prophet's birth (S. 105), say 570 AC. Jewish-Christian influences were powerful in Arabia in the sixth century of the Christian era. The religion of these Sabaeans (written in Arabic with a Sin) should not be confounded with that of the Sabians (with a Sad), as to whom see n. 76 to 2:62.