- The tribe of ʿād عاد is a tribe that lives in the city of Iram إرَم in the Quran, and was warned by the prophet Hud هود in al-Aḥḳāf. Medieval Arab geographers considered al-Aḥḳāf to be a sand desert between Ḥaḍramawt and ʿUmān in southern Arabia.
- This is incorrect and is rejected by modern historians. Archaeological evidence confirms the presence of the ʿĀd tribe in Jordan and shows that the area known in modern times as Wadi Rum was formerly called Iram.
- Many stories about the Ancient Arabs are presented in the Quran. The Arabs of the Quran belong to the Nabataean kingdom. The Nabataeans are quite important in the Arab heritage and cultural history presented in the Quran. Hijr, Iram, Ad and Thamud, all these Arab cities and tribes are in Nabataea.
- Association of ʿAd tribe with Iram in the Quran: Q. 89:6-7 ʾa-lam tara kaifa faʿala rabbuka bi-ʿādin ʾiram ḏāti l-ʿimādi “Do you not see what your Lord has done to Ad? To İrem, the owner of the pillars? The famous Jabal Ramm inscription, which mentions the region by the name Irem, translated by Robert Hoyland: br Κlyw ktb / ydh b-‘rm “’Aliyyo’s son wrote this with his own hand in Irem (إرَم).” https://www.academia.edu/3658961/Mount_Nebo_Ramm_Aramaic_and_Arabic_in_Palestine_and_Arabia
Al-Jallad: “The attestation of Ād in Northwest Arabia also supports its relationship with Iram, whose modern form is Wadi Rum. The toponym is also attested in Nabataean as ʾrm /irem/(elif-ra-mim).” https://web.archive.org/web/20170828050810/https://aljallad.nl/marginal-notes-on-bs-164-the-tribe-of-ʿad/
It appears that Ellât is also mentioned as the god of Irem in an inscription in Ain esh-Shallāla, Wadi Rum, ‘ltw ‘lht’ dy b’rm “Ellâtu, the god in Irem” here too Irem ארם aleph-resh-mem Arabic İrem إرم completely coincides with elif-ra-mim. https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Wadi-Ramm-Ain-esh-Shallala-Nabataean-inscription-to-the-Great-Goddess-of-Ramm-on-wall_fig7_314681842 https://www.academia.edu/43445525/Al_Jallad_2020_The_Seven_Stars_Allāt_from_ʿmn_and_Dusares_from_Rqm_A_new_Safaitic_astronomical_text
In an inscription erected next to the Ain esh-Shallāla water source in Wadi Rum, the region is again mentioned as Irem:
[… …] dy b-ʾrm ʿ[l ḥyy Rbʾl mlk.. That is in ʾrm (İram) for the life on king Rbʾl… https://web.archive.org/web/20181125012102/http://medina.humnet.unipi.it/index.php?id=144&prjId=5&corId=0&colId=6&navId=28220705&recId=10296
The mention of Wadi Rum with the name Irem is confirmed in these inscriptions. We also have three inscriptions about the ʿÂd tribe in Wadi Rum. We can obtain very limited information about the tribe from these inscriptions. A Safai inscription reads: “He mourned for his father and his brother from the lineage of ʿĀd.” where ʾl /ʾāl/ at the end of the inscription means “lineage, people, tribe” + ʿd ʿÂd and ʾl ʿd means “ ʿÂd lineage”.
In a Hismai inscription: l zhy bn ʿmr ḏ- ʾl ʿd “Written by Zhy son of Amer, of the lineage of ʿAd.”
Another Hismai inscription published by Farès and Zayadine (1998) mentions that the stone temple in Wadi Rum was built by the ʿÂd tribe for the Arabian goddess Ellât. Ellât was probably the chief god of the ʿÂd tribe. Nearly 2000-year-old Hismai inscription at Wādī Ram: “The temple of Ellât of the tribe of ʿÂd was built by Gawth, son of Awsallah, son of Thakam.” https://www.academia.edu/321766/Tow_North_Arabian_Inscriptions_From_the_Temple_of_Lât_Wadi_Iram
In the inscriptions, ʿÂd is not written with عاد (Ayn-Elif-Dal), but unlike the Quran, with عد (Ayn-Dal). This is because before Islam, the letter Alif was never used to represent the internal “ā”.
This is something that emerges from the Quran and modern spelling. Even in the Qur’an the use of alif is not consistently used to represent “ā”, such as in the noun اسحٰق. That’s why ʿÂd was written as عد instead of عاد in pre-Islamic inscriptions. Besides, Iram is mentioned in the Quran as Iram, the owner of pillars, “Iram dhāt al-ʿImād (Q. 89:7)”. This is most likely a reference to the pillar/tower-like rock formations of Wadi Rum. Herbert Berg is of similar opinion in the Routledge Handbook on Early Islam: “The pillars (al-ʿimād) mentioned in the Qur’an can be understood as buildings or, perhaps more plausibly, as the rock formations of Iram.”
As a Northern Arab name around Jordan, Safai is found as Hûd (Ḥd) in inscriptions and Ουδου (Oudou) in a Greek inscription. However, this has not been definitively confirmed in terms of alternative reading possibilities of Hûd Ḥād, Ḥīd, Ḥūd, Ḥawd, Ḥayd, Ḥadd, Ḥidd, or Ḥudd. https://www.academia.edu/43189829/Al_Jallad_2020_The_Damascus_Psalm_Fragment_Middle_Arabic_and_the_Legacy_of_Old_Ḥigāzī_w_a_contribution_by_R_Vollandt
It is not surprising that the name Hûd also belongs to the region, along with the attestation of the ʿÂd tribe and Irem in the region. In this case, the Qur’anic story uses a prophet’s name that is compatible with the region. One problem here is that the inscriptions mentioning the ʿÂd tribe and Irem are approximately two thousand years old. The Hismai and Safai inscriptions, in which the name of the ʿÂd tribe is mentioned, are dated between the 2nd century BC and the 4th century AD. The name of the ʿÂd (ʿd) tribe is mentioned only three times in the inscriptions. Apart from the temple they built, no important works of theirs have been found. Therefore, it is not clear how popular they were, whether there are stories of their destruction in oral tradition, and their pre-Islamic situation. However, the historicity of this tribe and the city of Irem where they lived, which had no story in the Abrahamic religious tradition before the Quran, could thus be confirmed. https://www.academia.edu/4421414/Ancient_North_Arabian