Page 74 - Perished Nations

ye get for yourselves fine buildings in the hope of living therein (for ever)?
And when ye exert your strong hand, do ye do it like men of absolute
power?
Now fear Allah, and obey me.
Yea, fear Him Who has bestowed on you freely all that ye know.
Freely has He bestowed on you cattle and sons,
And Gardens and Springs.
Truly I fear for you the Penalty of a Great Day."
They said: "It is the same to us whether thou admonish us or be not among
(our) admonishers!
This is no other than a customary device of the ancients, And we are not
the ones to receive Pains and Penalties!"
So they rejected him, and We destroyed them. Verily in this is a Sign: but
most of them do not believe.
And verily thy Lord is He, the Exalted in Might, Most Merciful. (Surat ash-
Shu’ara: 123-140)
The people who showed animosity to Hud (as) and rebelled against
Allah, were indeed destroyed. A horrible sandstorm annihilated ‘Ad as if
they had "never existed".

The Archaeological Finds of the City of Iram
At the beginning of 1990, there appeared press-releases in the well-
known newspapers of the world declaring "Fabled Lost Arabian city
Found", "Arabian city of Legend Found", "The Atlantis of the Sands, Ubar".
What rendered this archaeological find more intriguing was the fact that
this city is also referred to in the Qur’an. Many people who, since then,
thought that ‘Ad recounted in the Qur’an were a legend or that their loca-
tion could never be found, could not conceal their astonishment at this dis-
covery. The discovery of this city, which was only mentioned in oral sto-
ries of Bedouins, awoke great interest and curiosity.
It was Nicholas Clapp, an amateur archaeologist, who found this leg-
19
endary city mentioned in the Qur’an. Being an Arabophile and an award-
winning documentary film maker, Clapp had come across a very interest-
ing book during his research on Arabian history. This book was Arabia
Felix written by the English researcher Bertram Thomas in 1932. Arabia

Harun Yahya
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