Is Queen of Sheba (or Saba) called "Bilquis" in the Quran?

BismAllah ...

As-Salam Alaikum everyone.

The answer to the question in the heading is NO.   To analyze this topic, let us first quote Verses 20 to 44 of Surah 27 (An-Naml) for the convenience of our readers.

SURAH 27.  VERSES 20 TO 44.
20. And he sought among the birds and said: How is it that I see not the hoopoe, or is he among the absent ?
21. I verily will punish him with hard punishment or I verily will slay him, or he verily shall bring me a plain excuse.
22. But he was not long in coming, and he said: I have found out (a thing) that thou apprehendest not, and I come unto thee from Sheba with sure tidings.
23. Lo! I found a woman ruling over them, and she hath been given (abundance) of all things, and hers is a mighty throne.
24. I found her and her people worshipping the sun instead of Allah; and Satan maketh their works fairseeming unto them, and debarreth them from the way (of Truth), so that they go not aright;
25. So that they worship not Allah, Who bringeth forth the hidden in the heavens and the earth, and knoweth what ye hide and what ye proclaim,
26. Allah; there is no God save Him, the Lord of the Tremendous Throne.
27. (Solomon) said: We shall see whether thou speakest truth or whether thou art of the liars.
28. Go with this my letter and throw it down unto them; then turn away and see what (answer) they return,
29. (The Queen of Sheba) said (when she received the letter): O chieftains! Lo! there hath been thrown unto me a noble letter.
30. Lo! it is from Solomon, and lo! it is: In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful;
31. Exalt not yourselves against me, but come unto me as those who surrender.
32. She said: O chieftains! Pronounce for me in my case. I decide no case till ye are present with me.
33. They said: We are lords of might and lords of great prowess, but it is for thee to command; so consider what thou wilt command.
34. She said: Lo! kings, when they enter a township, ruin it and make the honour of its people shame. Thus will they do.
35. But lo! I am going to send a present unto them, and to see with what (answer) the messengers return.
36. So when (the envoy) came unto Solomon, (the King) said: What! Would ye help me with wealth ? But that which Allah hath given me is better than that which He hath given you. Nay it is ye (and not I) who exult in your gift.
37. Return unto them. We verily shall come unto them with hosts that they cannot resist, and we shall drive them out from thence with shame, and they will be abased.
38. He said: O chiefs! Which of you will bring me her throne before they come unto me, surrendering ?
39. A stalwart of the jinn said: I will bring it thee before thou canst rise from thy place. Lo! I verily am strong and trusty for such work.
40. One with whom was knowledge of the Scripture said: I will bring it thee before thy gaze returneth unto thee. And when he saw it set in his presence, (Solomon) said: This is of the bounty of my Lord, that He may try me whether I give thanks or am ungrateful. Whosoever giveth thanks he only giveth thanks for (the good of) his own soul; and whosoever is ungrateful (is ungrateful only to his own soul's hurt). For lo! my Lord is Absolute in independence, Bountiful.
41. He said: Disguise her throne for her that we may see whether she will go aright or be of those not rightly guided.
42. So, when she came, it was said (unto her): Is thy throne like this ? She said: (It is) as though it were the very one. And (Solomon said): We were given the knowledge before her and we had surrendered (to Allah).
43. And (all) that she was wont to worship instead of Allah hindered her, for she came of disbelieving folk.
44. It was said unto her: Enter the hall. And when she saw it she deemed it a pool and bared her legs. (Solomon) said: Lo! it is a hall, made smooth, of glass. She said: My Lord! Lo! I have wronged myself, and I surrender with Solomon unto Allah, the Lord of the Worlds.
 
To briefly sum up the above mentioned Quranic event:  Allah Almighty granted the ability to Prophet Solomon (pbuh) to understand the language of birds and ants.  There were also the jinn who worked for him.  The hoopoe (a bird) returned to Solomon with information of the Queen of Sheba, telling him that she and her community were disbelievers who worshiped the sun.  Solomon sent her a letter beginning in the name of Allah, inviting her to visit his land and to embrace Monotheism.  In reply, the queen of Sheba sent Prophet Solomon a gift with the intention of buying his friendship with a bribe which angered Solomon greatly.  He rejected the gift and sent her an ultimatum that she must either come humbly or face defeat by his army.  Before the queen arrived to meet Solomon, he ordered her throne to be brought to him so she could see it and reflect on the abilities for performing miracles which Allah is able to grant to His faithful slaves.   It cannot be confirmed who brought the throne, whether a jin or an angel. The Quran does not mention that.  In Solomon's palace there was also a hall made of exquisite glass that  looked like a pool of clear water.  On seeing all of this, the queen realized the Power of Allah Almighty and the favors He had bestowed on Prophet Solomon.  She immediately embraced Monotheism and submitted to The Almighty, The One and Only.  That's as much as the Quran mentions about the Queen of Sheba.    Nothing more. 

Now let's confirm some important facts as follows:

- The Quran does not mention the name of this queen.

- The Quran never says that her name was "Bilqis."  This guesswork apparently comes from our heavily tainted Hadith institution.  The equally fraudulent non-Muslim story tellers (viz Jews quarters) have given her another invented name known as "Makeda" and have gone with their LIES as far as accusing Solomon of calculated fornication amounting to rape by seducing his guest.   We will expose that false story at the end of this post, InshAllah.

- The Quran does not mention that the queen and Solomon were married as gossiped by some non-Muslim sources. 

- Quran definitely does NOT hint at a romantic relationship between them.

- The Quran does not specify the geographical location of Sheba.

All of the above are confirmed which you can check for yourself from the Verses quoted.

Traditional Hadith followers assert that all kings of Yemen were called  "Tubba" just as all kings of Egypt were called "Pharaoh."  I don't know how, but the same Hadithists have also presumed that Sheba was situated in Yemen or southern Arabia and the kings of Sheba  were called Tubba.   Contrary to all of this, the Quran mentions the term "Tubba" only once in Surah Al-Dukhan, V.44:37, quote:  "Are they better or the people of Tubba' and those before them? We destroyed them, [for] indeed, they were criminals."  Corpus Quran explains Tubba as: "Tubba (تبع) are an ancient people" not the title of kings.  And again, there is no reference in the Quran where Tubba was situated.  The Quran also gives us no reason to presume of a connection between Sheba and Tubba, that all kings of Sheba were called Tubba.  This concept is not contained in the Quran.

Also, as you can read in the above Quranic quotes, the place "Sheba" is mentioned by name in Verse 27:22.    Thus, the Quran refers to the queen as residing at a place called Sheba but does not specify where exactly the community or township of Sheba was situated.

We do know that Saba has been translated as "Sheba" in Verse 27:22 (refer above), and also in another Surah, 34:15 which is named "Saba."  Quoting Pickthall's translation of Verse 34:15 - "There was indeed a sign for Sheba in their dwelling-place:"  The original Arabic mentions "kāna li saba-in fī  maskanihim āyatun."  Direct translation would be: "(there) was for Saba in their dwelling place a sign."   Again we do not know where precisely this place named Saba (or Sheba) was located.  The Quran does not disclose it.

Furthermore, all those claims by non-Muslims that Sheba or Saba was in present-day Ethiopia or Somalia are definitely blind presumptions completely unwarranted from the Quranic view point.

We are not asserting that this queen belonged neither to Yemen, nor to Ethiopia nor to Somalia.  She may have belonged to one of these places; and just as likely she belonged to neither of these three places but to some other land we cannot know because the Quran has not revealed that information.

Non-Muslims particularly of African origin often wrangle that she was originally from (what's today known as) Ethiopia or Somalia.   This notion may have crept from the altered Jewish or Christian scriptures, but far more likely it props from traditional Jewish folklore. 

There is also a notion floating around that "Bilqis" was a jin or half a jin.  Again the Quran does not say anything of the sort.  This story arises from some Hadith compilers and so-called exegesists or commentators of the Quran.  One of the persons who came up with this concoction was Ibn Kathir.  He mentioned that Balqis' father was a powerful and arrogant king. He declined to marry just about every woman in Yeman; he married a female jinn and they had a daughter named  "Balkis" which probably later acquired the pronunciation 'Bilqis.'  A slightly differing version comes from another story penned by a 13th century Imam, Abu Abdullah al-Qurtubi, claiming Bilqis' grandfather, Hudahud, was a great king and controlled the entire land of Yemen. He had 40 sons. All these sons became kings. Bilqis' father, Sirah, who apparently was supposed to be one of the 40 sons and a king, was a conceited man.  He didn't consider any woman good enough to be his wife.  So he decided to marry a 'lady jin'  who gave birth to Bilqis. 

 ~Sigh~  You can see the depth and extent of imagination running wild!  If you research the stories of the imams, you will likely come across at least half a dozen more versions with slight variations.  Briefly put, both Ibn Kathir and al-Qurtubi are full of extra-Quranic contents.  There's no way we an accept such unsupportive tales .. the same as the Jewish/Christian versions that need to be trashed.

In fact, if there is anything farther from the truth than Hadith, it's the Ethiopian myth about this queen supposedly called Bilqis.  Other than the mythological conjecture that she belonged to Ethiopia, a bizarre and funny fiction has been added to it that she had goat hooves rather than human feet.  Another unknown source of gossip comes up with a very laughable story about how Bilqis' got goat hooves.  It babbles that one day when Bilqis' mother was pregnant with her (she was apparently very hungry), she saw a goat and desired to cook and eat it.  Thenceforth, when her own daughter was born, the child had one normal foot and one goat's hoof.  So, it brings about two variations compared to the previous tale.  First, there's no mention of Bilqis being a jin as this gossip doesn't allude to her mother being a jin.  Secondly, it says that Bilqis had one goat hoof leg, not both.
~Yawn~ !!  LMFAO.

The other highly objectionable point we need to plainly state is that some ignorant and badass non-Muslim sources are circulating the back-bench talk that the story of "Bilqis" having hooves comes from the Quran.  The idiocy of these twits & twats needs to be thrown straight back at them with the categorical and confirmed statement that the Noble Quran does NOT convey any such ideas.  To find out the Quranic version, you only need to read Verses 20 to 44 of Surah 27 quoted at the beginning of this post.

The fables associated with "Bilqis" don't end here either.  The most abominable scandal mongering is carried out by the Jews.  Jewish rabbis or clerics (or whatever one may call them) have constructed a very disgusting falsification about "Bilqis" and Prophet Solomon similar to the erroneous and distorted story of "David and 'Bathsheba' " contrived by the altered Bibles. Only for the information of our readers, we will briefly go over the details of that offensive myth of "Bilqis" and Solomon, so you can recognize it if you read it elsewhere and reject it immediately.

According to Ethiopian traditional myth, Sheba or Saba was located in Ethiopia known as Shoa in ancient times situated in the same region as modern day Addis Ababa.  They claim that the Queen of Sheba belonged to this place and her name was Makeda. This is definitely a Jewish tale and I won't be surprised if it originated in the Jewish quarters of Ethiopia in recent times comparatively.  They have concocted a very dirty myth for which Allah Almighty will punish the low-life scums responsible for it, InshAllah.  The story lies by claiming Makeda with her entourage visited Jerusalem and stayed there for some months when Solomon fell in love with her.  Soon before she left Jerusalem, Solomon invited her to stay in his castle.  She said she would stay only if Solomon didn't make any romantic advances.  Solomon agreed on the condition that only if she didn't take anything from the castle that was a part of his property.   Solomon ordered a spicy meal to be cooked for dinner that evening and also had a glass of water placed by Makeda's bedside in her room.  After the spicy meal Makeda awoke thirsty in the middle of the night and drank the water.  Solomon soon came to the room and told her she had broken her promise by taking something that belonged  to him - the glass of water.  Consequently they spent the night together, and after Makeda returned to Ethiopia she gave birth to Solomon's "son."  This false and dirty tale is further stretched into claiming that this so-called illegitimate son of Makeda later became Ethiopia's emperor and founder of what the Ethiopians claim the "Solomonid dynasty" which continued all the way from the prehistoric era until Emperor Haile Selassie was deposed in 1974.  Limitless stupidity, nay raving madness!   This lie is even for far-fetched than the one hatched by the Saudi "royal" family and the Jordanian "royal" family claiming themselves to be the descendents of Prophet Muhammed (pbuh).   Substance-wise as well as ethnically, this vile story is one hundred percent un-Quranic and false.  Slandering anyone is a thoroughly un-Quranic stance. To slander a Prophet and messenger of Allah, as has been done by the shameless mischief mongers responsible for constructing this tale would undoubtedly carry dire consequences in the Hereafter.   InshAllah.