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The Thamud ( ar, ثَمُوْد, translit=Ṯamūd) were an ancient Arabian tribe or tribal confederation that occupied the northwestern
Arabian peninsula The Arabian Peninsula, (; ar, شِبْهُ الْجَزِيرَةِ الْعَرَبِيَّة, , "Arabian Peninsula" or , , "Island of the Arabs") or Arabia, is a peninsula of Western Asia, situated northeast of Africa on the Arabian Plate ...
between the late-eighth century BCE, when they are attested in
Assyria Assyria (Neo-Assyrian cuneiform: , romanized: ''māt Aššur''; syc, ܐܬܘܪ, ʾāthor) was a major ancient Mesopotamian civilization which existed as a city-state at times controlling regional territories in the indigenous lands of the A ...
n sources, and the fifth century CE, when they served as Roman
auxilia The (, lit. "auxiliaries") were introduced as non-citizen troops attached to the citizen legions by Augustus after his reorganisation of the Imperial Roman army from 30 BC. By the 2nd century, the Auxilia contained the same number of inf ...
ries. The Kingdom of Thamud was the first existing kingdom on the Arabian peninsula, according to Assyrian and Roman sources. Arabian tradition holds that the Thamud kingdom was destroyed by God. It had no written law, but the tribal leader played the role of ruler. The Thamud are mentioned in contemporary
Mesopotamia Mesopotamia ''Mesopotamíā''; ar, بِلَاد ٱلرَّافِدَيْن or ; syc, ܐܪܡ ܢܗܪ̈ܝܢ, or , ) is a historical region of Western Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the F ...
n, Classical, and Arabian sources, including in inscriptions in a temple erected in the 160s for the god ʾlhʾ, by the Thamud themselves. It is possible that multiple unrelated groups took on the name of Thamud; they probably spoke Old Arabic. The Thamud are not specially connected to the
Thamudic Thamudic is a name that refers to ancient Arabic Thamudic tribe language found by nineteenth-century scholars for large numbers of inscriptions in Ancient North Arabian (ANA) alphabets which have not yet been properly studied. These texts are foun ...
scripts, an aggregate term for understudied writing systems of Ancient Arabia. The
Quran The Quran (, ; Standard Arabic: , Classical Arabic, Quranic Arabic: , , 'the recitation'), also romanized Qur'an or Koran, is the central religious text of Islam, believed by Muslims to be a revelation in Islam, revelation from God in Islam, ...
mentions the Thamud as an example of an ancient polytheistic people who were destroyed by
God In monotheism, monotheistic thought, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator deity, creator, and principal object of Faith#Religious views, faith.Richard Swinburne, Swinburne, R.G. "God" in Ted Honderich, Honderich, Ted. (ed)''The Ox ...
for their sins. According to the Quran and the Islamic exegetical tradition, the Thamud were an early
Arab The Arabs (singular: Arab; singular ar, عَرَبِيٌّ, DIN 31635: , , plural ar, عَرَب, DIN 31635: , Arabic pronunciation: ), also known as the Arab people, are an ethnic group mainly inhabiting the Arab world in Western Asia, ...
tribe who rejected the message of the
prophet In religion, a prophet or prophetess is an individual who is regarded as being in contact with a divine being and is said to speak on behalf of that being, serving as an intermediary with humanity by delivering messages or teachings from the s ...
Salih Salih (; ar, صَالِحٌ, Ṣāliḥ, lit=Pious), also spelled Saleh (), is an Arab prophet mentioned in the Quran who prophesied to the tribe of Thamud in ancient Arabia, before the lifetime of Muhammad. The story of Salih is linked to the ...
. When they cut the
hamstring In human anatomy, a hamstring () is any one of the three posterior thigh muscles in between the hip and the knee (from medial to lateral: semimembranosus, semitendinosus and biceps femoris). The hamstrings are susceptible to injury. In quadrupeds, ...
of a female camel that God had sent down for them, despite the prophet's warnings, they were annihilated, except for Salih and a few righteous tribesmen.


Pre-Islamic sources

The word Thamud appears in the ''
Annals Annals ( la, annāles, from , "year") are a concise historical record in which events are arranged chronologically, year by year, although the term is also used loosely for any historical record. Scope The nature of the distinction between ann ...
'' of the
Assyria Assyria (Neo-Assyrian cuneiform: , romanized: ''māt Aššur''; syc, ܐܬܘܪ, ʾāthor) was a major ancient Mesopotamian civilization which existed as a city-state at times controlling regional territories in the indigenous lands of the A ...
n king
Sargon II Sargon II (Neo-Assyrian cuneiform: , meaning "the faithful king" or "the legitimate king") was the king of the Neo-Assyrian Empire from 722 BC to his death in battle in 705. Probably the son of Tiglath-Pileser III (745–727), Sargon is general ...
(r. 722—705 BCE), inscribed at
Dur-Sharrukin Dur-Sharrukin ("Fortress of Sargon"; ar, دور شروكين, Syriac: ܕܘܪ ܫܪܘ ܘܟܢ), present day Khorsabad, was the Assyrian capital in the time of Sargon II of Assyria. Khorsabad is a village in northern Iraq, 15 km northeast of Mo ...
. As the "Ta-mu-di", the peoples are mentioned together with the
Ephah Ephah (, ''‘Êp̄āh'', Septuagint Γαιφα, ''Gaipha'') was one of Midian's five sons as listed in the Hebrew Bible. Midian, a son of Abraham, was the father of Ephah, Epher, Enoch, Abida, and Eldaah by his wife KeturahGenesis 25:4. These ...
, the "Ibadidi", and the "Marsimani" as part of "the distant desert-dwelling Arabs who knew neither overseers nor officials and had not brought their tribute to any king". Sargon defeated these tribes, according to his ''Annals'', and had them forcibly deported to
Samaria Samaria (; he, שֹׁמְרוֹן, translit=Šōmrōn, ar, السامرة, translit=as-Sāmirah) is the historic and biblical name used for the central region of Palestine, bordered by Judea to the south and Galilee to the north. The first- ...
. Historian Israel Eph'al questions the plausibility of Sargon's account, as the briefness of Sargon's account seems to be at odds with the fact that such a campaign deep into Arabia would have been one of the longest wars in Assyrian history, and because no mention of plunder is provided. Eph'al instead speculates that the Thamūd and other Arab tribes may have made arrangements with Sargon to trade in Samaria, which Assyrian historians embellished as submission. A surviving letter from
Nabonidus Nabonidus (Babylonian cuneiform: ''Nabû-naʾid'', meaning "May Nabu be exalted" or "Nabu is praised") was the last king of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, ruling from 556 BC to the fall of Babylon to the Achaemenid Empire under Cyrus the Great in 539 ...
, a sixth-century king of Babylon, includes an order that a "Te-mu-da-a Ar-ba-a-a", apparently "Thamudi Arab", be given several talents of silver. This individual was probably a merchant or official in service of the Babylonian court. Thamūd is also mentioned in Classical sources. Surviving quotations from
Agatharchides Agatharchides or Agatharchus ( grc-gre, Ἀγαθαρχίδης or , ''Agatharchos'') of Cnidus was a Greek historian and geographer (flourished 2nd century BC). Life Agatharchides is believed to have been born at Cnidus, hence his appellation. A ...
's ''On the Erythrean Sea'', from the second century BCE, reports that the Thamud Arabs then inhabited a "stony and large shore" of the Arabian coastline, south of the
Gulf of Aqaba The Gulf of Aqaba ( ar, خَلِيجُ ٱلْعَقَبَةِ, Khalīj al-ʿAqabah) or Gulf of Eilat ( he, מפרץ אילת, Mifrátz Eilát) is a large gulf at the northern tip of the Red Sea, east of the Sinai Peninsula and west of the Arabian ...
. In a somewhat muddled passage,
Pliny the Elder Gaius Plinius Secundus (AD 23/2479), called Pliny the Elder (), was a Roman author, naturalist and natural philosopher, and naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and a friend of the emperor Vespasian. He wrote the encyclopedic '' ...
, a Roman historian of the first century CE, appears to locate the Thamūd at the unidentified inland town of "Baclanaza".
Ptolemy Claudius Ptolemy (; grc-gre, Πτολεμαῖος, ; la, Claudius Ptolemaeus; AD) was a mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, geographer, and music theorist, who wrote about a dozen scientific treatises, three of which were of importanc ...
, who lived in the second century, wrote that the "Thamuditai" tribe inhabited the Red Sea coastline, and that the "Thamoudenoi" tribe lived in inland northwestern Arabia—either or both may be references to the Thamūd—while his contemporary
Uranius Uranius is the name of two possible Roman usurpers of the third century. The first Uranius is mentioned only by Zosimus, and was briefly active during the latter part of the reign of Alexander Severus. He was chosen by dissatisfied soldiers alo ...
believed that the Thamūd neighbored the
Nabateans The Nabataeans or Nabateans (; Nabataean Aramaic: , , vocalized as ; Arabic language, Arabic: , , singular , ; compare grc, Ναβαταῖος, translit=Nabataîos; la, Nabataeus) were an ancient Arab people who inhabited northern Arabian Pe ...
. The Thamūd also joined the Roman armies as
auxilia The (, lit. "auxiliaries") were introduced as non-citizen troops attached to the citizen legions by Augustus after his reorganisation of the Imperial Roman army from 30 BC. By the 2nd century, the Auxilia contained the same number of inf ...
ries, and the ''
Notitia Dignitatum The ''Notitia Dignitatum'' (Latin for "The List of Offices") is a document of the late Roman Empire that details the administrative organization of the Western and the Eastern Roman Empire. It is unique as one of very few surviving documents of ...
'' mentions two units of Thamūd warriors serving the Roman Empire, one in Egypt and the other in Palestine. The Thamūd are infrequently mentioned in contemporary indigenous Arabian sources, although two
Safaitic Safaitic ( ''Al-Ṣafāʾiyyah'') is a variety of the South Semitic scripts used by the nomads of the basalt desert of southern Syria and northern Jordan, the so-called Ḥarrah, to carve rock inscriptions in various dialects of Old Arabic and A ...
inscriptions carved some time between the first century BCE and the fourth century CE refer to "the year of the war between Gšm and the tribe of Thamūd 'snt ḥrb gšm ʾl ṯmd''. An important exception is a temple at al-Ruwāfa in northwestern Saudi Arabia, built by the Thamūd themselves in the 160s CE. The temple inscriptions (in
Ancient Greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic peri ...
and
Nabataean Aramaic Nabataean Aramaic is the Aramaic variety used in inscriptions by the Nabataeans of the East Bank of the Jordan River, the Negev, and the Sinai Peninsula. Compared to other varieties of Aramaic, it is notable for the occurrence of a number of loa ...
) state that it was constructed by a priest named Šʿdt of the "Thamūd of Robathū" for ʾlhʾ, apparently the patron deity of the tribe, with the Roman government's support. Robathū is likely the ancient name of modern al-Ruwāfa. The Thamūd in question were Roman auxiliary troops, as the inscription states explicitly:
For the well-being of the rulers of the whole world... Marcus Aurelius Anthoninus and Lucius Aurelius Verus, who are the conquerors of the Armenians. This is the temple that was built by the tribal unit of Thamūd, the leaders of their unit, so that it might be established by their hands and be their place of veneration forever... with the support of Antistius Adventus, the governor.
But despite the presence of a tribe called the Thamud as late as the fourth century, sixth-century Arab poets whose works are preserved in post-Islamic sources were already referring to the Thamud as an ancient and long-lost tribe whose very name recalled the transience of all things. It is possible that the Thamud were not one tribe, and that other tribes took on the name of Thamūd after the original tribe by that name had gone extinct.


Islamic sources

Arab Islamic sources state that the Thamud were an early Arab tribe that had gone extinct in ancient days. Thamud is mentioned twenty-three times in the
Quran The Quran (, ; Standard Arabic: , Classical Arabic, Quranic Arabic: , , 'the recitation'), also romanized Qur'an or Koran, is the central religious text of Islam, believed by Muslims to be a revelation in Islam, revelation from God in Islam, ...
as part of a moralistic lesson about God's destruction of sinful nations, a central motif in the Quran. According to the Quran, the Thamud were the successors of a previous nation called the
ʿĀd ʿĀd ( ar, عَادٌ, ') is an ancient tribe mentioned frequently in the Qurʾān. The tribe's members, referred to as ʿĀdites, formed a prosperous nation until they were destroyed in a violent storm. According to Islamic tradition, the st ...
, who had also been destroyed for their sins. They lived in houses carved into the surface of the earth. God chose the
prophet In religion, a prophet or prophetess is an individual who is regarded as being in contact with a divine being and is said to speak on behalf of that being, serving as an intermediary with humanity by delivering messages or teachings from the s ...
Salih Salih (; ar, صَالِحٌ, Ṣāliḥ, lit=Pious), also spelled Saleh (), is an Arab prophet mentioned in the Quran who prophesied to the tribe of Thamud in ancient Arabia, before the lifetime of Muhammad. The story of Salih is linked to the ...
to warn the polytheistic Thamud that they should worship the
One God Monotheism is the belief that there is only one deity, an all-supreme being that is universally referred to as God. Cross, F.L.; Livingstone, E.A., eds. (1974). "Monotheism". The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (2 ed.). Oxford: Oxford ...
. The tribe refused to heed him, saying that Salih was merely a mortal, and demanded a sign from God. God sent down a milch camel as his sign, and Salih told his countrymen that they should not harm the camel and allow it to drink from their well. But the Thamud cut its
hamstring In human anatomy, a hamstring () is any one of the three posterior thigh muscles in between the hip and the knee (from medial to lateral: semimembranosus, semitendinosus and biceps femoris). The hamstrings are susceptible to injury. In quadrupeds, ...
or otherwise wounded it. God then destroyed the tribe, except for Salih and a few other righteous men. The means of God's destruction of Thamud include a thunderbolt, a storm, a shout, and an earthquake. The shout, which is an extremely loud sound, might have caused the earthquake, according to certain scholars. The account presented in
Surah A ''surah'' (; ar, سورة, sūrah, , ), is the equivalent of "chapter" in the Qur'an. There are 114 ''surahs'' in the Quran, each divided into '' ayats'' (verses). The chapters or ''surahs'' are of unequal length; the shortest surah ('' Al-K ...
an-Naml An-Naml ( ar, النمل, ’an-naml, lit=The Ant) is the 27th chapter (''sūrah'') of the Qur'an with 93 verses ('' āyāt''). Regarding the timing and contextual background of the supposed revelation (''asbāb al-nuzūl''), it is an earlier ...
also mentions nine evil people of Thamud 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 worshiped? 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. rophet 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. Accordingly, the Thamud were a powerful and idolatrous tribe living in
Hegra HEGRA, which stands for ''High-Energy-Gamma-Ray Astronomy'', was an atmospheric Cherenkov telescope for Gamma-ray astronomy. With its various types of detectors, HEGRA took data between 1987 and 2002, at which point it was dismantled in order ...
, now called Madāʼin Ṣāliḥ, the Cities of Ṣāliḥ—in northwestern Arabia. When Salih began to preach monotheism, the Thamud 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 Salih, 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 Thamud, who then attempted but failed to kill Salih himself. Having failed to save his people, Salih warned that they would be destroyed after three days. On the first day, their skin would turn yellow; on the second day, red; and on the final day of destruction, black. This came to pass, and Thamud was annihilated. The traditional Muslim view is that the destruction of Thamud occurred before the prophethood of
Abraham Abraham, ; ar, , , name=, group= (originally Abram) is the common Hebrew patriarch of the Abrahamic religions, including Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. In Judaism, he is the founding father of the special relationship between the Jew ...
. A ''
hadith Ḥadīth ( or ; ar, حديث, , , , , , , literally "talk" or "discourse") or Athar ( ar, أثر, , literally "remnant"/"effect") refers to what the majority of Muslims believe to be a record of the words, actions, and the silent approval ...
'' tradition preserved in the '' Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī'' collection narrates that the Islamic prophet
Muhammad Muhammad ( ar, مُحَمَّد;  570 – 8 June 632 Common Era, CE) was an Arab religious, social, and political leader and the founder of Islam. According to Muhammad in Islam, Islamic doctrine, he was a prophet Divine inspiration, di ...
called Hegra "the land of Thamud" 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
Nabataean The Nabataeans or Nabateans (; Nabataean Aramaic: , , vocalized as ; Arabic: , , singular , ; compare grc, Ναβαταῖος, translit=Nabataîos; la, Nabataeus) were an ancient Arab people who inhabited northern Arabia and the southern Lev ...
period, especially the first century CE. The ninth-century Muslim scholar Ibn Saʿd believed that the Thamud were the Nabateans. A poem attributed to Umayya ibn Abi-ṣ-Ṣalt, a Meccan contemporary of Muhammad who refused to accept Islam, contains a reference to the camel and Thamud. In Umayya's account, there is no Salih. Instead, the camel is killed by a certain "accursed Aḥmar", and the camel's foal stands upon a rock and curses Thamud, leading to the tribe's annihilation except for a single lame woman who is spared to spread the message of the destruction. Whether the poem is genuinely by Umayya or is a post-Islamic creation is a matter of debate. Some Islamic sources claim that the
Banu Thaqif The Banu Thaqif ( ar, بنو ثقيف, Banū Thaqīf) is an Tribes of Arabia, Arab tribe which inhabited, and still inhabits, the city of Ta'if and its environs, in modern Saudi Arabia, and played a prominent role in early Islamic history. Durin ...
tribe, an Arab tribe from
Ta'if Taif ( ar, , translit=aṭ-Ṭāʾif, lit=The circulated or encircled, ) is a city and governorate in the Makkan Region of Saudi Arabia. Located at an elevation of in the slopes of the Hijaz Mountains, which themselves are part of the Sarat M ...
in the period of Muhammad, was descended from a survivor of the Thamud (sometimes a slave of Salih).


Thamudic script

Thamudic Thamudic is a name that refers to ancient Arabic Thamudic tribe language found by nineteenth-century scholars for large numbers of inscriptions in Ancient North Arabian (ANA) alphabets which have not yet been properly studied. These texts are foun ...
is an aggregate name for some 15,000 inscriptions from all over Arabia, which have not been properly studied and identified as separate languages. The name is a misnomer from the nineteenth century, when such texts were discovered in areas associated with the Thamud in the Islamic tradition. There is no special connection between these scripts and the tribe of Thamud.


See also

*
Atlantis of the Sands Atlantis of the Sands refers to a legendary lost city in the southern deserts of the Arabian Peninsula, thought to have been destroyed by a natural disaster or as a punishment by God. The search for it was popularised by the 1992 book ''Atlant ...
*
Iram of the Pillars Iram of the Pillars ( ar, إرَم ذَات ٱلْعِمَاد, ; an alternative translation is ''Iram of the tentpoles''), also called "Irum", "Irem", "Erum", "Ubar", or the "City of the pillars", is considered a lost city, region or tribe men ...


References


Citations


Works cited

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External links

* {{Historical Arab tribes Ancient peoples History of the Arabian Peninsula History of Saudi Arabia Arab groups