(part 1 of 2): The Fate of the Nations of Noah, Saba, Iram and Salihs
“This is how We grasped everyone in their sin; among them were those against whom we sent a sandstorm, and those whom the cry overtook, and which we let the earth sink into, and which we drowned. And Allah did not want to wrong them, but they wronged themselves ”(Quran 29:40)
Noah and the ark
An archaeological study found a more than 500 foot long ship-shaped formation on Mount Judi [1], some 20 miles south of Mount Ararat (where the Bible placed Noah’s ark). It has horizontal deck-supporting beams at regular intervals and indentations of the same size that resemble rotting ribbed beams. Natural causes cannot create such symmetrical forms!
“And it was ordered:“ 0 earth, devour your water, oh heaven, stop (raining)! “ And the water started to sink and the matter was decided. And the ship came to rest on Judi. And it was ordered, „Away with the wicked people!“ ”(Quran 11:44)
All the bad people on earth were drowned while believers and animals were carried with Noah in his ark. The ship on which Judi remained almost intact at the dawn of Islam. What remains today is still worth seeing.
The Temple of Saba
Another people whose sins were answered with a destructive flood was the people of Saba´. They turned from their Creator, God, to worship others. All that is left of their once so rich civilization (in Marib, Yemen) are the broken pieces of their dam, a few Sabaean inscriptions and the ruins of their temple. [2] (below).
„There was truly a sign for Saba ‚in her homeland: two gardens on the right and on the left:“ Eat from the gifts of your Lord and be thankful to Him. (Your is) a city that is good and a Lord who is Forgiving is! “ However, they turned away; then We sent a torrential flood against them. And we gave them two gardens with bitter fruit and tamarisks and a few lotus trees instead of their gardens. We gave them this as a reward for their ingratitude; and so we reward none other than the ungrateful. ” (Quran 34: 15-17)
Ad, Iram, and Ubar
„Haven’t you seen how your Lord dealt with the ‚Ad with Iram, the pillar-like kingdom of such things, was not created in (other) countries?“ (Quran 89: 6-9 )
The ‚Ad were a nation of giants. ‚Who is more powerful than us in our strength ?!‘ (Quran 41:15), they boasted and tyrannized peoples with their greatness, while their prophet Hud asked them to fear God and to be righteous. For most historians, the story of Iram [3] is a pure fable, a myth, an ´atlantis of the sand´.
Until 1973, when the 4,300 year old town of Ebla in northern Syria was excavated. Some 2,500 wedge-shaped clay tablets (above) from Eblas Palace Library were discovered, containing reports from all the nations Ebla was trading with, including one called ‚Iram‘! [4]
”(Hud said to ‚Ad :)‘ Do you build memorials on every hill to have fun? And do you build castles as if you should live long? ” (Quran 26: 128-129)
In 1992, the remains of a city were found with the help of satellite images, which corresponds to the location and description of Iram given in the Quran; deep in the desert on the edge of Oman. Incense candles, Parthian pottery (above) and the 90 cm thick walls that protect it prove the city’s wealth.
Excavations have also shown that the city came to a catastrophic end when it half sank into a huge hole where the ruins of a fortress and eight once towering columns still stood (top). The ‚Ad were destroyed by a force of nature that was even more cruel than them. [5]
“That is why we sent an icy wind against them for several ominous days, so that we let them taste the punishment of shame in this life. And the punishment of the hereafter will surely be even more shameful, and it will not be helped. ” (Quran 41:16)
The People of Thamud
”(Salih said to Thamud 🙂 Will you surely be left behind among the things that are under gardens and springs and cornfields and date palms with umbels that almost break? And you skilfully cut out apartments from the mountains. ” (Quran 26: 146-149)
“And to the Tamud (We sent) their brother Salih; he said: „0 my people, serve Allah; you have no other God but Him. He brought you out of the earth and let you settle on it. So forgive His forgiveness, then turn to Him. Verily, my Lord is near ( and) answer the prayers. “ They said, „0 Salih, you have been the focus of hope among us before. Do you want to prevent us from worshiping what our fathers worshiped? And we are truly in troubling doubt about what you are asking us to do.“ 11: 61-2)
The Prophet Muhammad passed the ghost town of Madain Salih (above and below), which the Thamud had carved into the mountain and said:
“Do not go in unless you cry because this was a place the (divine) punishment. ”
The relatives of the Nabataeans from Petra some 300 miles north, the Thamud forcibly rejected their prophet Salih. Then she struck God with a sound that killed her, but spared her houses: a truly eerie sign for later generations.
Footnotes:
[1] “’Archologists‘ claim to have found Noah’s ark,” Martin Wroe. The Observer (London) Jan 16, 1994.
[2] (http://www.yobserver.com/cgi-bin/yobserver/exec/view.cgi/1/8902), (http://www.viewzone.com /sheba.country.html), (http://www.ucalgary.ca/UofC/events/unicomm/NewsReleases/queen.htm)
[3] Also known as Ubar.
[4] Ebla: A Revelation in Archeology, Times Books, 1979, Wiedenfeld and Nicolson, Great Britain.
[5] Around 300 BC, a city called Ubar mysteriously disappeared; it was a busy center on the incense trade route in ancient Arabia. According to legend, Ubar people became greedy and corrupt and refused to change. To punish them, God destroyed their city and all the streets that had led there. Ubar was lost for thousands of years, but legend survived in the Bedouin, Quran, and Arabian night campfire stories. Many archaeologists thought that the legend of Ubar was more than just a fairy tale, but their searches for the lost city were unsuccessful. That is, until the 1990s, when NASA made it easier to find satellites and radars. NASA’s help was key to locating Ubars. Images from Landsat and SPOT (Satellite Pour l’Observation de la Terre) showed traces through the desert, which turned out to be ancient caravan routes. These suras came together in the village of Al Shisr in southwest Oman. An expedition followed the trail to the virtual “X” in the sand and started digging. Discoveries of old ceramic shards from distant lands, incense holders and the remains of a fortress confirmed the archaeologists‘ assumptions – Ubar had really existed and its demise could be clarified. In fact, the legend turned out to be correct: Ubar had found a catastrophic end. Excavations revealed a huge limestone cave under the fortress. The city was most likely destroyed when much of it sank into the chamber below. Today, excavations reveal more about life along the incense routes over 4,000 years ago. (by Marisa Larson, National Geographic Magazine, http://magma.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0304/feature2/index.html)
(part 2 of 2): The Peoples of Moses and Lot
”And Pharaoh said:“ O Haman, build me a tower so that I can reach the entrances; the entrances to the heavens so that I can see him, the God of Moses‘ , and I truly consider him a liar. „…” (Quran 40: 36-37)
A good thousand years ago, the only ‚Haman‘ mentioned outside of Islamic texts was a Babylonian courtier from the history of tower construction to Babel. Academics mocked his mention in the Quran, quoting him as evidence of Muhammad’s allegedly incorrect borrowing from the Bible; by mixing Babylonian history with the much earlier story from the Exodus.
Then, in 1799, one of Napoleon’s captains in Egypt discovered a gray-pink granite stone in the port of the city of Rosetta (top). He showed it to General Abdullah Jacques de Menou, a convert to Islam, who sent him to Cairo to be examined. The Rosetta Stone, which dates from 196 BC, was described in three writings: hieroglyphic, demotic and Greek. His discovery meant that scholars from around the world were ultimately able to decipher the Egyptian hieroglyphs. One result was the decoding of an inscription on a pharaonic stela from the mosaic period in the Vienna Court Museum. Interestingly, the name ´Haman´ was engraved on the stela with its title: ´Overseer of the workers from the quarry´. [2] Exactly the man a pharaoh had commissioned
“And (we destroyed) Korah and Pharaoh and Haman. And Moses came to them with clear evidence, but they behaved haughtily on earth; But they could not escape us. ” (Quran 29:39)
“Now we want to save you today (from the sea) so that you (Pharaoh) can be a proof for those who come after you. And there are certainly many people who ignore our signs. ” (Quran 10:92) [3]
“And We swept the colonel (the city of Sodom) down below, and We let burning stones rain on them. Truly, there are signs for the insightful. And it is due to an existing path. (from Mecca to Syria, where the Dead Sea is now) Truly, here is a sign for the faithful. ” (Quran 15: 74-77)
The Prophet Lot was harmed by his people when he warned them of their homosexuality and oppression. Until God finally let projectiles of fired clay rain down on the Sodomites; lift their land up among them and let the bottom fall on top of them. The Dead Sea water (above) filled the large depression that remained immediately after the terrible destruction. Today there are only a few ruins (below) of the peoples that once inhabited the country. A country that became the deepest point on earth through the sins of the Sodomites – in more than one sense!
So, read the Quran and understand the lesson from the past peoples; of those who have reached the pinnacle of civilization have accumulated great wealth, power and prestige, only to be ungrateful and forget themselves and their Lord. They became decadent and corrupt, arrogant and proud, cruel and oppressive, as they turned to falseness and false gods. God sent His prophets to them, supported by miracles and revelations, to remind them of His favor and obedience, and justly and benevolently to one another and to all of creation. But they were incredulous despite His clear signs. They denied their prophets, made fun of them, ridiculed and disregarded them, and even tried to kill them!
Finally, when there was no hope or excuse for her anymore; if they accelerated their annihilation by cheekily challenging the One God to punish them; so He did this and the earth was cleansed. Not only do their remains serve as a reminder to us today, they also prove the divine origin of the Quran itself. For none other than a true prophet of God, as Muhammad actually did, could have given such details and, moreover, with such certainty unless he was inspired from above.
“Did the report about those who lived before them not reach them, the people of Noah, the ‚Aad and Thamud, the people of Abraham and the companions of Madyan and the vanished cities (Sodoms)? Their messengers came to them with the clear signs. And it is definitely not God who wronged them, but they wronged themselves. ” (Quran 9:70)
Footnotes:
[1] Walter Wreszinski, Egyptian Inscriptions from the KK Hof Museum in Vienna, 1906, JC Hinrichs‘ bookshop.
[2] Hermann Ranke, The Egyptian Personal Names, List of Names, published by JJ Augustin in Glückstadt, Volume I, 1935, Volume II, 1952.
[3] The images above are from an Egyptian mummy believed to be the pharaoh who was drowned in the Red Sea. For further information: Mummies of the Pharaohs: Modern Medical Investigations. By Maurice Bucaille. Translated by Alastair D. Pannell and the author. Illustrated. 236 S. New York: St. Martin’s Press.
Source: https://www.islamland.com/deu/articles/die those who have gone