page_title: Thamud
section_title: Islamic sources
hierarchical_section_title: Thamud / Islamic sources
caption_attribution_description: Madain Saleh
context_page_description: The Thamūd were an ancient Arabian tribe or tribal confederation that occupied the northwestern Arabian peninsula between the late eighth century BCE, when they are attested in Assyrian sources, and the fourth century CE, when they served as Roman auxiliaries. They are mentioned in contemporary Mesopotamian, Classical, and Arabian sources, including in inscriptions in a temple erected in the 160s for the god ʾlhʾ by the Thamūd themselves. It is possible that multiple unrelated groups took on the name of Thamūd. They probably spoke Old Arabic.
  The Quran mentions the Thamūd as an example of an ancient polytheistic people who were destroyed by God for their sins. According to the Quran and the Islamic exegetical tradition, the Thamūd were an early Arab tribe who rejected the message of the prophet Ṣāliḥ. When they cut the hamstring of a female camel that God had sent down for them, despite the prophet's warnings, they were annihilated except for Ṣāliḥ and the few righteous tribesmen. Islamic historiography identifies the Thamūd with the ruins of Hegra in what is now the northern Hejaz.
context_section_description: Arab Islamic sources state that the Thamūd were an early Arab tribe that had gone extinct in ancient days.
  Thamūd is mentioned twenty-three times in the Quran as part of a moralistic lesson about God's destruction of sinful nations, a central motif in the Quran. According to the Quran, the Thamūd were the successors of a previous nation called the ʿĀd, who had also been destroyed for their sins. They lived in houses carved into the surface of the earth. God chose the prophet Ṣāliḥ to warn the polytheistic Thamūd that they should worship the One God. The tribe refused to heed him, saying that Ṣāliḥ was merely a mortal, and demanded a sign from God. God sent down a female camel as his sign, and Ṣāliḥ told his countrymen that they should not harm the camel and allow it to drink from their well. But the Thamūd cut its hamstring or otherwise wounded it. God then destroyed the tribe except for Ṣāliḥ and a few other righteous man. The means of God's destruction of Thamūd differs according to the exigencies of the Quran's rhyme scheme, including a thunderbolt, a storm, a shout, and an earthquake. The account presented in Surah an-Naml also mentions nine evil people of Thamūd who are immediately responsible for God's punishment of their people in a narrative reminiscent of Jewish descriptions of the demise of Sodom.
  To the Thamūd, We sent their brother, Ṣāliḥ. He said, "My people, worship God. You have no god other than Him. It was He who brought you into being from the earth and made you inhabit it, so ask forgiveness from Him, and turn back to Him: my Lord is near, and ready to answer." They said, "Ṣāliḥ, We used to have such great hope in you. Will you forbid us to worship what our fathers worshipped? We are in grave doubt about what you are asking us to do." He said, "My people, just think: if I did have clear proof from my Lord, and if He had given me mercy of His own, who could protect me from God if I disobeyed Him? You would only make my loss greater. My people, this camel belongs to God, a sign for you, so leave it to pasture on God’s earth and do not harm it, or you will soon be punished." But they hamstrung it, so he said, "Enjoy life for another three days: this warning will not prove false." And so, when Our command was fulfilled, by Our mercy We saved Ṣāliḥ and his fellow believers from the disgrace of that day. [Prophet], it is your Lord who is the Strong, the Mighty One. The blast struck the evildoers and they lay dead in their homes, as though they had never lived and flourished there. Yes, the Thamūd denied their Lord– so away with the Thamūd!
  The Islamic exegetical tradition adds detail to the Quran's account. According to the exegesis, the Thamūd were a powerful and idolatrous tribe living in Hegra—now called Madāʼin Ṣāliḥ, the Cities of Ṣāliḥ—in northwestern Arabia. When Ṣāliḥ began to preach monotheism, the Thamūd demanded that he prove his prophethood by bringing forth a pregnant camel from solid rock. When God permitted the prophet to do this, some of the tribesmen followed Ṣāliḥ, while many powerful leaders continued to oppose him. After giving birth, the camel drank all the water from a well every two days and then produced enormous amounts of milk for the people. But it was hamstrung and eventually killed by nine people of Thamūd, who then attempted but failed to kill Ṣāliḥ himself. Having failed to save his people, Ṣāliḥ warned that they would be destroyed after three days. On the first day, their skill would turn yellow; on the second day, red; and on the final day of destruction, black. This came to pass and Thamūd was annihilated. The traditional Muslim view is that the destruction of Thamūd occurred before the prophethood of Abraham.
  A hadith tradition preserved in the Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī collection narrates that the Islamic prophet Muhammad called Hegra "the land of Thamūd" and did not allow his troops to drink from its wells or to use its water, and to never enter its ruins "unless weeping, lest occur to you what happened to them." The stone constructions of Hegra are actually mostly from the Nabata
caption: Ruins of carved buildings at Hegra
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