The people of 'Ad to whom the prophet Hud was sent – For Christians, To be Born Again in Islam!
Information about the Arabian tribe of ‘Ad was not recorded in history. However, it was mentioned in the Holy Quran. Recent archeological discoveries have established the truth of the Holy Quran. The discovery of ruins of Iram was a two step process, firstly, the discovery of the people of Ebla in Syria, who traded with Iram (habitation of the ‘Ad) and then the discovery of Iram in southern Arabia.
The ‘Ad were eventually destroyed by a sand storm. According to the Holy Quran the sand storm blew for 7 nights and 8 days, for details see the body of the knol. The Quran not only preserves an accurate account of the lost ‘Ad but its description also guided the expedition in the archeological discovery, as described in the body of the knol.
Interestingly enough, we will find the details in the National Geographic of 1978 which confirm that in those tablets the city of Iram is mentioned. The people of Eblus used to do business with the people of Iram. So here in 1973, comes confirmation of the fact that, after all, there really was an ancient city by that name, wherever it was. Iram was the town of the people of ‘Ad that was eventually discovered in 1990s.
Ubar, a name of a region or a name of a people, was mentioned in ancient records, and was spoken of in folk tales as a trading center of the Rub’ al Khali desert in the southern part of the Arabian peninsula. It is estimated that it lasted from about 3000 B.C. to the first century A.D. According to legends, it became fabulously wealthy from trade between the coastal regions and the population centers of the Arabic peninsula and Europe. The region became lost to modern history, and was thought to be only a figment of mythical tales. Some confusion exists about the word “Ubar”. In classical texts and Arabic historical sources, Ubar refers to a region and a group of people, not to a specific town. Ptolemy’s second century map of the area shows “Iobaritae”. It was only the late Medieval version of The One Thousand and One Nights, in the fourteenth or fifteenth century, that romanticized Ubar and turned it into a city, rather than a region or a people.
The Holy Qur’an (1,400 years ago) mentions a certain city by the name of Iram (a city of pillars) [Qur’an 89:7], which was not known in ancient history and which was non-existent as far as historians were concerned. The December 1978 edition of the National Geographic Magazine records that in 1973, the city of Ebla was excavated in Syria. The city was discovered to be 4,300 years old. Researchers found in the library of Ebla a record of all of the cities with which Ebla had done business. On the list was the specific name of the city of “Iram” (and not the name of the general region of Ubar). The people of Ebla had apparently done business with the people of “Iram”.
The Thamud were the descendents of the ‘Ad and are discussed in a separate knol. They were in norhtern Arabia a place called Madain Salih and Petra. Thamud were known for hewing houses in the mountains and the ‘Ad were known for their lofty buildings. The Thamud were destroyed by earthquakes and the ‘Ad by a sandstorm.
The first sign (of a dust or sandstorm) is an approaching wall of dust-laden air which may be several thousand feet in height lifted by the strong rising currents and stirred by a fairly strong wind, as shown in the picture below.
In the verse, it is stated that the people saw the cloud that would bring them calamity, but could not understand what it was and thought that it was a rain cloud. This is an important indication as to how the calamity was as it drew near to the people, because a cyclone proceeding along whipping up the desert sand also seems like a rain cloud from a distance. It is possible that the people of ‘Ad were deceived by this appearance and did not notice the calamity.
Juri’s hunch to excavate the site’s north ridge could not have been more on target. We had uncovered the north wall and towers of an ancient fortress.
If this was Iram/Ubar, where were the columns? One explanation, I thought, lay in the Arabic word pronounced عماد imad. In contem¬porary usage, it means pillar, but older definitions were broader. In George Sale’s 1782 edition of the Koran, the first in English, the line in question is translated as “The people of lram, adorned with lofty buildings.” In the ancient world, lofty buildings would most likely have been what Juri was finding: towers.
The prophet Muhammad, incidentally, decried “lofty buildings.” In a saying regarding “Signs of the End” (that is, the end of the world) he condemns them for presuming to soar higher than mosques. Given Ubar’s mythical repute for arrogance, how fitting that it be known for its “lofty buildings,” its towers.
As the week progressed, Juri and his students unearthed the footing of a third tower and more of the fortress wall.
Nicholas Clapp decided to enlist NASA’s help because of its expertise in applying remote sensing. He contacted Dr. Ronald Blom of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory for help. Data from an experiment on the NASA space shuttle using imaging radar was of particular interest. This experiment bounced radar off the Earth’s surface to determine the type of terrain. Since the radar penetrated through dry sand, they thought the remains of a buried fortress might be revealed.
The initial radar images yielded no direct indication of the location of the site, but images from the Landsat and SPOT remote sensing satellites showed distinct tracks through the desert. The researchers identified these tracks as old caravan routes. The caravan routes converged at a place called Ash Shisr, near the eastern edge of the Empty Quarter.
According to Nicholas Clapp, Ubar was destroyed and abandoned between 300-500 AD.
Nicholas Clapp. The Road to Ubar: Finding the Atlantis of the Sands. Houghton Mifflin Company, 1999. Pages 189-190.
Nicholas Clapp. The Road to Ubar: Finding the Atlantis of the Sands. Houghton Mifflin Company, 1999. Page 276.