Queen of Shadows: The Djinn Legacy of Sheba

The Queen of Shadows: The Djinn Legacy of Sheba

By now, we’ve already crossed paths with the djinn. Back in Demonology 101, I touched on them alongside angels and demons, and later in Not of Heaven or Hell: The Mysterious Djinn, I explored what sets them apart — beings made of smokeless fire, living neither in heaven nor in hell, but in their own hidden world.

But the djinn don’t just belong to folklore whispered in the desert wind. Their presence stretches into the legends of kings and queens, threading itself through some of the most powerful stories of the ancient world. And few tales capture this shadowy connection more than the encounter between King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba.

Solomon and His Spirits

Solomon — or Sulayman, as he is remembered in Islamic tradition — wasn’t merely a wise king. He was a ruler of the seen and the unseen. The Qur’an describes how djinn were forced to serve him: they built his palaces, carried his treasures, and bent their fire-born wills to his commands1. His throne was guarded not just by men, but by spirits bound in obedience.

One famous episode captures their rivalry with divine power. When Solomon learned that the Queen of Sheba was coming to visit, he challenged his court: Who can bring me her throne before she arrives?

A mighty djinn stepped forward, boasting he could transport it in the blink of an eye. Yet it wasn’t the djinn who succeeded. Instead, it was a man “endowed with knowledge of the Book,” whose wisdom outpaced even supernatural speed2. The lesson was clear — knowledge granted by God outweighed raw, otherworldly power.

The Queen of Rumors

But Solomon wasn’t the only one cloaked in mystery. The Queen of Sheba herself, known as Bilqis in Arabic lore and Makeda in Ethiopian legend, carried whispers of the strange wherever she went.

Some said she was more than mortal. Beneath her silks, they claimed, her feet were not human at all — goat-like, or sometimes donkey-like, depending on who told the tale3. To her rivals, this was proof: Sheba was born of djinn, part human and part spirit.

Was this simply an attempt to discredit a powerful woman by painting her as unnatural? Or does it echo something older — a half-forgotten memory of rulers who were believed to walk between the human and the supernatural? Either way, the rumors never left her.

A Meeting of Worlds

Their encounter was more than politics. It was the collision of two realms: a king whose authority extended over spirits, and a queen whose very bloodline may have carried the mark of the djinn.

The traditions split on what happened next. Ethiopia’s Kebra Nagast remembers Sheba as the mother of Menelik I, the first of a Solomonic dynasty4. In Islamic tradition, she is humbled before Solomon’s wisdom and converts. In Arabian folklore, her shadow lingers, half-queen and half-spirit, never fully belonging to the world of men.

The Legacy of Shadows

Whether she was entirely human, half-djinn, or simply the subject of jealous rumors, the Queen of Sheba’s story reveals just how deeply the djinn are woven into the myths of kings and empires. She stands at a threshold — remembered not just as a monarch, but as a figure of fire, shadow, and mystery.

And perhaps that’s the true legacy of the djinn: they slip through the cracks of history, shaping the stories of prophets and queens, always present, never fully explained.

What Comes Next

As we leave the Queen of Sheba’s shadowed throne, our journey returns to the haunted heart of medieval Christianity. Next up:

Dark Ages and Dark Spirits: Possession and Power in Medieval Christianity — where faith and fear collide in monasteries, villages, and courts, and the unseen world is never far away.

From there, we’ll step deeper into the night with witchcraft, witch-panics, and the trials that reshaped Europe’s imagination of the supernatural.

Footnotes

  1. Qur’an 27:17, describing Solomon’s command over djinn, men, and birds. ↩
  2. Qur’an 27:38–40, the story of the throne of Sheba. ↩
  3. Arabian folklore often depicted Bilqis with animal-like feet, linking her to djinn ancestry. ↩
  4. Kebra Nagast, Ethiopian royal chronicle. ↩

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