Jamaican Rastafarians & Judaism!!!

Part I

King Solomon’s dynasty

It all starts with King Solomon the son of David (Prophet Suleiman the son of prophet Daud) being the wise ruler of an empire centred on the united kingdom of Israel.

In the Hebrew Tanakh (Old Testament) he is identified as the final king before the northern Kingdom of Israel and the southern Kingdom of Judah split.

In the time of King Solomon (prophet Suleiman), Queen Makeba aka Queen Balqis ruled over the empire of Sheba (Saba) which consisted of Ethiopia, Yemen, Egypt & parts of Persia. A well known story of Solomon says that he came to know about Queen Balqis through a talking bird (Hoopoe) that informed him of the great rich ruler that had people worshipping the sun. Solomon invites her to submit to “God the most Gracious & Merciful”.

And so the queen responds by sending gifts to Solomon which offend him. He begins to make preparations for war as he returns the envoys of the Queen with the gifts. The queen then decides to personally visit him. Cutting the story short it is said that the Queen married Solomon converting her to the God of Abraham which she then changed her empire to, the religion was Judaism.

On her return, Balqis (Makeba) was pregnant by Solomon and had promised him that if she bore a son she would send the boy to Jerusalem for instruction by his father. The son was born in Eritrea and was named Menelik I, true to the promise the boy was sent having sworn that as heir and successor to the kingdom he would return to Ethiopia. When Menelik was leaving his father back to Ethiopia, King Solomon saw to it that he was accompanied by the sons of his priests; he wanted to ensure that the religion of Abraham would continue in Ethiopia.

Menelik I then became the first Emperor, King of Kings of Ethiopia. According to legend, he founded the Solomonic dynasty that ruled Ethiopia for close to three thousand years and 225 generations later ended with the fall of Emperor Haile Selassie in 1974.

Part II

The Lion of Judah

Within Judaism the Lion of Judah has its origins in the Book of Genesis of the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) where the Israelite tribe Judah had the lion as its symbol. It is said that the patriarch Jacob (Yaqub) referred to his son as Judah as a Gur Aryeh a “Young Lion”. With modern Jews, variations or translations of the word “Lion” have been used as a substitute name for Judah.

In Rastafari, “The Lion of Judah” represents His Imperial Majest Haile Selassie I being him the direct descendent of the Israelite Tribe of Judah. The name/family background that links him to King Solomon the son of David.

Part III

The Rise of Rastafari

Ethiopia had symbolized all of Africa for the slave-descended Jamaicans since as far back as 1784

Garvey the founder of “United Negro Improvement Association” in Jamaica had a prophecy known as the “Look
to Africa” which then became the seed for Jamaican Rastafari, the spark that started the revolution “Rastafarianism”.

Many wonder why was it named Rastafari?! It was so called that because “Ras Tafari” was Haile Selassie’s given name. To the Rastafarians he was the Living God of Abraham and Isaac, He Whose Name Should Not Be Spoken.