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Saba سبإ

In plain wordsEditorial

An editorial summary of the translations. Not a translation or tafsir.

Fifty-four verses: Solomon's death, unnoticed by the jinn working under him until a creature of the earth eats through his staff. Then Sheba: two gardens, a dam that bursts, and a people scattered into stories. It takes its name from them, and asks throughout who exactly the intercessors are supposed to be.

AALAMIN Editor · signed 29 August 2026

not a scholar — what this signature means

I am not a scholar, and nothing here asks you to treat me as one. The plain words on this site are my restatement of what the five translations shown above say, together with counts derived from the text itself — nothing more. I sign them so that a named person is accountable for every sentence, not so you'll take my word for anything. The authority on this page is the text and its translators. If my words don't match theirs, mine are the ones that are wrong.

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Every verse as a number; tap one to open it. Shaded numbers mark verses where the translations differ most.

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worded differently

Where the translators differDerived

The verses of this surah whose wording differs most, most differently worded first. Under each, the two renderings that share the fewest words are quoted in full under their translators' names; every rendering is on the verse's own page. This measures wording, not meaning.

34:17
Analysis details This verse's score: 0.74. Widest pair of the 5 renderings, at 0.85.

Edward Henry Palmer · 1880

This did we reward them with, for that they misbelieved; and do we so reward any but misbelievers

Mohammed Marmaduke William Pickthall · 1930

This We awarded them because of their ingratitude. Punish We ever any save the ingrates
34:53
Analysis details This verse's score: 0.74. Widest pair of the 5 renderings, at 0.85.

Mohammed Marmaduke William Pickthall · 1930

When they disbelieved in it of yore. They aim at the unseen from afar off

George Sale · 1734

Since they had before denied him, and reviled the mysteries of faith, from a distant place
Show all verses the translators word differently
34:38
Analysis details This verse's score: 0.72. Widest pair of the 5 renderings, at 0.82.

Mohammed Marmaduke William Pickthall · 1930

And as for those who strive against Our revelations, challenging, they will be brought to the doom

George Sale · 1734

But they who shall endeavour to render our signs of none effect, shall be delivered up to punishment
34:34
Analysis details This verse's score: 0.72. Widest pair of the 5 renderings, at 0.84.

Talal Itani · 2012

We sent no warner to any town, without its affluent saying, "We reject what you are sent with."

John Medows Rodwell · 1861

And never have we sent a warner to any city whose opulent men did not say, "In sooth we disbelieve your message
34:32
Analysis details This verse's score: 0.70. Widest pair of the 5 renderings, at 0.86.

Talal Itani · 2012

Those who were arrogant will say to those who were oppressed, "Was it us who turned you away from guidance when it came to you? No indeed, you yourselves were sinful."

George Sale · 1734

They who behaved themselves arrogantly shall say unto those who were esteemed weak, did we turn you aside from the true direction, after it had come unto you? On the contrary, ye acted wickedly of your own free choice
More about this surahDerived
Verses
54
Words
883
Place
Meccan
Revelation position
58th of 114 in an ordering its source does not name
Opening letters
None
Bismillah
Carried by the surah, unnumbered
Word-by-word breakdown
59.7% of 883 words carry an analysis
  1. 96
  2. 68
  3. 73
  4. 74
  5. 1
  6. 111
  7. 81
  8. 87
  9. 92
  10. 89
  11. 93
  12. 94
  13. 103
  14. 100
  15. 108
  16. 102
  17. 107
  18. 109
  19. 105
  20. 113
  21. 114
  22. 112
  23. 53
  24. 80
  25. 97
  26. 91
  27. 85
  28. 95
  29. 106
  30. 101
  31. 75
  32. 104
  33. 77
  34. 50
  35. 90
  36. 86
  37. 54
  38. 38
  39. 7
  40. 72
  41. 36
  42. 25
  43. 35
  44. 19
  45. 20
  46. 56
  47. 26
  48. 27
  49. 28
  50. 17
  51. 10
  52. 11
  53. 12
  54. 15
  55. 6
  56. 37
  57. 31
  58. 34
  59. 39
  60. 40
  61. 41
  62. 42
  63. 43
  64. 44
  65. 45
  66. 46
  67. 51
  68. 88
  69. 18
  70. 16
  71. 71
  72. 14
  73. 21
  74. 23
  75. 32
  76. 52
  77. 67
  78. 69
  79. 70
  80. 78
  81. 79
  82. 82
  83. 84
  84. 30
  85. 29
  86. 83
  87. 2
  88. 8
  89. 3
  90. 33
  91. 60
  92. 4
  93. 99
  94. 57
  95. 47
  96. 13
  97. 55
  98. 76
  99. 65
  100. 98
  101. 59
  102. 24
  103. 22
  104. 63
  105. 58
  106. 49
  107. 66
  108. 64
  109. 61
  110. 62
  111. 48
  112. 5
  113. 9
  114. 110

Meccan Medinan

Counted from the text and the spine at build time, not written into the page. Opening letters are derived from the edition's orthography: an opening token of at most five letters carrying none of its vocalisation marks. The revelation position is reproduced from Revelation order as encoded by the Tanzil metadata, which does not name whose ordering it is.

Analysis detailsDerived

These figures count the words the translations share. They measure wording, not meaning, and they do not say which translation is right.

Mean score across this surah
0.61 across 54 scored verses

The page says a verse is worded differently only above the cut below. The cut is a stated convention, not a property of the text, and it can be changed.

The cut
0.644
Share of measured verses above it
33%
Verses above it
2,079
Verses measured
6,236
Method Wording differences — derived 13 September 2026
Method
Mean pairwise Jaccard distance over the lowercased word sets of the cleared translations of each verse. A verse is marked as worded differently when its score falls in the top third of the corpus — the cut set out in Analysis details.
Scored
6,236 verses
As at
13 September 2026, 10:56 UTC
Sources for this page

Surah metadataTanzil Qur'an metadata ·quran-data.xml v1.0·Tanzil Project ·Creative Commons Attribution — version not specified by the source·retrieved 24 Aug 2026

Surah metadata from Tanzil Qur'an metadata (quran-data.xml, version 1.0), Tanzil Project, tanzil.net. (C) 2008-2009 Tanzil.info. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution; the source does not state a version. Values are reproduced unchanged; this site selects and arranges them, and derives verse ranges from the division start points. https://tanzil.net/res/text/metadata/quran-data.xml