liturgy. In the Quran The people of Midian are mentioned extensively in the Quran. The word 'Madyan' appears 10 times in it. The people are also called (). The lands of Midian are mentioned in sura Al-Qasas (The Stories), verses 20-28, of the Quran as the place where Moses escaped upon learning of the Pharaoh conspiring to kill him. Surah 9 (Al-Tawbah), verse 70 says "Has not the story reached them of those before them? – The people of Nūḥ (Noah), ʿĀd and Thamud, the people of Ibrahim (Abraham), the dwellers [literally, comrades] of Madyan (Midian) and the cities overthrown [i.e. the people to whom Lūt (Lot) preached], to them came their Messengers with clear proofs. So it was not Allah who wronged them, but they used to wrong themselves." In Surah 7 (Al-ʾAʿrāf), Madyan is mentioned as one of several peoples who were warned by prophets to repent lest judgment fall on them. The story of Madyan is the last, coming after that of Lot preaching to his people (referring to the destruction of the Cities of the Plain). Madyan was warned by the prophet Shuʿaib to repent of practicing polytheism, using false weights and measures and lying in wait along the road. But they rejected Shuʿayb, and consequently were destroyed by a tremor (rajfa, v. 91). Abdullah Yusuf Ali in his commentary (1934) writes, "The fate of the Madyan people is described in the same terms as that of the Thamūd in verse 78 above. An earthquake seized them by night, and they were buried in their own homes, no longer to vex Allah's earth. But a supplementary detail is mentioned in [Quran] 26:189, 'the punishment of a day of overshadowing gloom,' which may be understood to mean a shower of ashes and cinders accompanying a volcanic eruption. Thus a day of terror drove them into their homes, and the earthquake finished them." A number of scholars have proposed that the biblical description of devouring fire on Mount Sinai refers to an erupting volcano in the land of biblical Midian identified as Hala-'l Badr in northwestern Saudi Arabia. Pottery Midianite pottery, also called Qurayyah Painted Ware (QPW), is found at numerous sites stretching from the southern Levant to NW Saudi Arabia, the Hejaz; Qurayyah in NW Saudi Arabia is thought to be its original location of manufacture. The pottery is bichrome / polychrome style and it dates as