Case file · Folklore / legend
The bursting of the Ma'rib dam
The Qur'an speaks of the 'flood of the dam' sent on Saba. Arab legend says the soothsayer Tarifa foresaw it after a rat gnawed at the dam, so her tribe left before the final collapse.
570 CE · 15.39, 45.24 · status: legend
The account
The great dam of Ma'rib was repaired many times; inscriptions record breaches in the 5th and 6th centuries, and it finally failed around 570, scattering tribes across Arabia.
The sceptical view
The collapse was real; the prophecy belongs to tribal origin legend.