Обсуждение:Ирам

Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾān

Название места или, возможно, племени. Это связано с людьми «дд» (q.v.) и, таким образом, в дополнение к истории пророка Худа (q.v.). Ирам фактически упоминается только один раз в Коране, в аяте 89:6-7: «Разве вы не видите, как ваш лорд имел дело с» адом «, и с Ирам из колонн» (a-lam tara kayfa fa’ala rabbuka bi- «В Ирама дхати л-димади». Некоторые классические экзегеты (см. Exegesis of qur'ān: классический и средневековый) интерпретируют Ирама как находящегося в приложении к и, таким образом, синонимом — людей '. Для них Ирам обозначает древнее племя и подразделение «ад» (наиболее убедительно утверждал Ибн Халдун, см. Ибн Халдун-Розенталь, i, 25-8). Кроме того, для некоторых Ирам был прародителем «набатейцев», то есть арамейцев (например, Шабари, Тарих, я, 220). Эпитет «колонн» (дхати л-амади) в этом случае понимается как племенной эпитет «палаточных столбов» или, совсем недавно, «людей доверия» (Ахмед Али, аль-Коран). Однако подавляющее большинство экзегентов понимают, что Ирам «из колонн» является местом: столицей страны «Адитов», разрушенной Божьим гневом (см. Рассказы о наказаниях). Наиболее часто предполагаемое расположение этого города находится в Йемене. Согласно этой версии, "царь царей по имени Шаддад построил город в пустыне недалеко от Адена, чтобы конкурировать с раем (q.v.): описание богатства Ирама сильно варьируется, но оно всегда детализировано. Однако, прежде чем Шаддад и его люди могли переехать в свой новый город, Бог уничтожил его и его людей за их гордость (см. Также высокомерие) вместе с городом Ирам. Этот рассказ на основе Йемена породил свою долю приключений-историй, таких как часто пересказываемая история о Ибн-Килабе, странствующем пастухе, который, как говорят, обнаружил потерянные руины Ирама во время правления ¶ Омейядского халифа Муавии (ум. 60/680) или открытие двух бесстрашных исследователей гробницы Шаддада, вырезанных в гору с видом на море. Другие (например, аль-Рабаи, Фахаил, 20) предпочитают идентифицировать Ирам с доисламским Дамаском, возможно, под влиянием его связи с библейским Арамом и, без сомнения, его многочисленными колоннами. Третьи (такие как аль-Замахшари, Асас) идентифицируют Ирама с Александрией. Сила традиции идентификации Ирама с местом, а не с народом подтверждается его включением в основные арабские географические словари: Абу’Убайд аль-Бакри, Якут аль-Шамави и Ибн Абд аль-Муним аль-Ыймяри (см. Географию; история и qur'ān).

The name of a place or possibly a tribe. It is connected with the people of ʿād (q.v.) and thus, by extension, with the story of the prophet Hūd (q.v.). Iram is in fact mentioned only once in the Qurʾān, in q 89:6-7: «Do you not see how your lord dealt with ʿād, [and with] Iram of the columns» (a-lam tara kayfa faʿala rabbuka bi-ʿĀdin Irama dhāti l- ʿimādi). Some classical exegetes (see exegesis of the qurʾān: classical and medieval) interpret Iram as being in apposition to — and thus synonymous with — the people of ʿĀd. For them, Iram designates an ancient tribe, and a subdivision of ʿĀd (argued most forcefully by Ibn Khaldūn; cf. Ibn Khaldūn-Rosenthal, i, 25-8). Furthermore, for some, Iram was the progenitor of the "Nabateans, " that is, Aramaeans (e.g. Ṭabarī, Taʾrīkh, i, 220). The epithet «of the columns» (dhāti l-ʿimādi) is in this case understood as a tribal epithet «of the tent-poles» or, more recently, «people of trust» (Ahmed Ali, al-Qurʾān). The vast majority of the exegetes, however, understand Iram «of the columns» to be a place: the capital city of the land of the ʿĀdites, destroyed by God’s wrath (see punishment stories). The most commonly supposed location of this city is in Yemen. According to this version, an ʿĀdite king named Shaddād built a city in the desert near Aden to rival paradise (q.v.): the description of Iram’s opulence varies greatly, but it is always detailed. Before Shaddād and his people could relocate to his new city, however, God destroyed him and his people for their pride (q.v.; see also arrogance), along with the city of Iram. This Yemen-based narrative generated its share of adventure-stories, such as the often-retold tale of Ibn Qilāba, a wandering shepherd who is said to have discovered the lost ruins of Iram during the reign ¶ of the Umayyad caliph Muʿāwiya (d. 60/680) or that of the discovery by two intrepid explorers of Shaddād’s tomb carved into a mountain overlooking the sea. Others (such as al-Rabaʿī, Faḍāʾil, 20) prefer to identify Iram with pre-Islamic Damascus, perhaps influenced by its association with the biblical Aram and, no doubt, its plentiful columns. Still others (such as al-Zamakhsharī, Asās) identify Iram with Alexandria. The strength of the tradition of identifying Iram with a place rather than a people is attested by its inclusion in the main Arabic geographical dictionaries: Abū ʿUbayd al-Bakrī, Yāqūt al-Ḥamawī and Ibn ʿAbd al-Munʿim al-Ḥimyarī (see geography; history and the qurʾān).

Encyclopaedia of Islam, First Edition (1913—1936)

Ирам Ḏhāt al-'Imād — встречается в Ḳur'ān только в Sūra 89, 6: «(5) Не видел ли ты, как твой Господь имел дело с: (6) Ирам дхат аль-Имад, подобный тому, который не был создан в земли». — Связь между «Эйд» и «Ирам» в этих стихах может интерпретироваться по-разному, поскольку комментарии объясняют подробно. Если Ирам взят в отличие от ", то понятно, почему Ирам также был взят как племенное имя; Тогда Имад можно было бы принять в смысле «палаточного столба». По мнению других, полюса — это описание гигантской фигуры Ирама, что особенно подчеркивается. Если Ирам стоит в Ифафе, то более вероятно, что Ирам дхат аль-Имад является географическим термином: «Ирам с колоннами». Это преобладающее мнение среди мусульман. То, что точно указано, однако, является точкой, на которой мнения широко различаются как на востоке, так и на западе. По мнению Яхута, наиболее часто рассматриваемый взгляд — это то, что считает дхат аль-Имад эпитетом Дамаска [q. v. i. 903A]. Ḏjairūn b. Sa’d b. [См. Дамаск, то есть 904b], как говорят, поселились здесь "и построили город, украшенный мраморными колоннами. Лот использовал эту традицию в поддержку своего мнения, что только арамейские традиции связаны с именем Ирам. Ирам, однако, часто называют мусульманами в Южную Аравию, к которой также относились. У него было два сына: Шаддад и Шадид. После смерти последнего Шаддад покорил царей мира; когда он услышал о Раю, у него был город, построенный в степях Адена, который должен был быть имитацией Рая. Его камни были из золота и серебра, а его стены покрыты драгоценными камнями и т. Д. Когда Шаддад, пренебрегая предупреждением Худа [q. v.], хотел увидеть город, он был разрушен торнадо со всей свитой в дневном путешествии от Ирама и всего города, погребенного в песке. В традиции, данной аль-Масуди (ii. 421), история не имеет трагического конца. После того, как Шаддад построил Ирам, он хотел создать дубликат города на месте Александрии. Когда пришел Александр Великий, чтобы найти Александрию, он обнаружил следы большого здания со множеством колонн из мрамора. На одном из них была надпись Шаддада б. Б-г. Шаддад б. "В том, что он сказал, что он построил этот город на модели Ирам дхат аль-Имад; но Бог положил конец его жизни: никто не должен испытывать соблазн совершить слишком великое дело. — Нетрудно видеть, что эта традиция связана с романсом Александра, в котором он связан (Псевдо-Каллисфен, изд. К. Мюллер, И. 33), что в здании Александрии был найден храм с обелисками, который была надпись царя Сесончи, который правил миром. Предупреждение, упомянутое в надписи аль-Масуди, также вполне соответствует тендеру легенды Александра. Поэтому мы не должны ожидать здесь традиции относительно места Ирама. Следует, однако, отметить, что Шабари также в своем комментарии к Ḳur'ān дает мнение, что Ирам был идентичен Александрии. Кроме того, это связано с тем, что определённый «Аллах Аллах». Ḳilāba, ища двух потерянных верблюдов, случайно попал на погребенный город, из руин которого он привез мускус, камфору и жемчуг в Мувию. Все это, однако, становилось пылью при воздействии воздуха. Муавия вызвал Ка’ба аль-Ашбар [q. v.] ему и спросил его о городе. Последний сразу ответил: «Это должен быть Ирам из столпов, который должен был быть найден в твоем халифате человеком, чья внешность такова». В описании точно указано «Абд Аллах». Трудно скрытый тон насмешки, с которым аль-Масуди связывает все это (Муруд, iv. 88), стоит отметить. Согласно мусульманским ученым, этот Ирам-дхат аль-Имад лежал рядом с Аденом или между Шанья и Шарамаутом или между «Оманом и Шарамаутом». Следует отметить, что форма имени Ирам является южноарабической: Хаддани упоминает холм и колодец имени Ирам в Южной Аравии. Этот факт является опровержением мнения Лота, который рассматривает арамейские ссылки исключительно. Также ясно, что мы не должны принимать связь между племенем Ирам = Арамом и Ирам дхатом аль-Имадом, которые предполагаются мусульманской традицией. — Рассказ о нахождении семейной гробницы 'd b. Ирам встречается в D. H. Müller, Südarabische Studien (сайт., В., В., Историк. Klasse, lxxxvi. 134 sqq.).

Iram Ḏh̲āt al-ʿImād — occurs in the Ḳurʾān only in Sūra 89, 6: «(5) Hast thou not seen how thy Lord dealt with ʿĀd, (6) Iram d̲h̲āt al-Imād, the like whereof hath not been created in the lands». — The connection between ʿĀd and Iram in these verses may be interpreted in various ways, as the commentaries explain at length. If Iram is taken in contrast to ʿĀd, it is intelligible why Iram also has been taken as a tribal name; Imād could then be taken in the sense of «tent-pole». According to others, the poles are a description of the giant figure of the Iram, which is thus particularly emphasised. If Iram stands in iḍāfa to ʿĀd, it is more probable that Irām d̲h̲āt al-ʿImād is a geographical term: «Iram with the pillars». This is the prevailing opinion among Muslims. What is exactly referred to, however, is a point on which opinions differ widely both in east and west. According to Yāḳūt, the view most frequently held is that which considers d̲h̲āt al-Imād an epithet of Damascus [q. v. i. 903a]. Ḏj̲airūn b. Saʿd b. ʿĀd [see damascus, i. 904b] is said to have settled here’ and have built a town adorned with marble columns. Loth has used this tradition in support of his view that only Aramaic traditions are associated with the name Iram. Iram, however, is frequently referred by Muslims to South Arabia to which ʿĀd also belonged. ʿĀd had two sons, S̲h̲ad­dād and S̲h̲adīd. After the death of the latter, S̲h̲addād subdued the kings of the world; when he heard of Paradise he had a town built on the steppes of Aden which was to be an imitation of Paradise. Its stones were of gold and silver and its walls studded with jewels, etc. When S̲h̲addād, after neglecting the warning of Hūd [q. v.], wished to see the town, he was destroyed by a tornado with his whole retinue a day’s journey from Iram and the whole town buried in sand. In a tradition given by al-Masʿūdī (ii. 421) the story does not have a tragic ending. After S̲h̲addād ¶ had built Iram, he wished to erect a duplicate of the town on the site of Alexandria. When Alexander the Great came, to found Alexandria, he discovered traces of a great building with many columns of marble. On one of these was an inscription of S̲h̲addād b. ʿĀd b. S̲h̲addād b. ʿĀd in which he related that he had had this town built on the model of Iram d̲h̲āt al-Imād; but God put an end to his life: no one should be tempted to undertake too great a thing. — It is easy to see that this tradition is connected with the romance of Alexander, in which it is related (Pseudo-Callisthenes, ed. C. Müller, i. 33) that at the building of Alexandria a temple with obelisks was found which had an inscription of King Sesonchis who ruled the world. The warning mentioned in al-Masʿūdī’s inscription is also quite in the tenor of the Alexander legend. We therefore must not expect here a tradition concerning the site of Iram. It must be noted, however, that Ṭabarī also in his commentary on the Ḳurʾān gives the view that Iram was identical with Alexandria. It is further related that a certain ʿAbd Allāh b. Ḳilāba while seeking two lost camels came by chance on the buried town, from the ruins of which he brought musk, camphor, and pearls to Muʿwiya. All these however became dust when exposed to the air. Muʿāwiya summoned Kaʿb al-Aḥbār [q. v.] to him and asked him about the town. The latter at once replied: «It must be Iram of the pillars, which was to be found in thy caliphate by a man whose appearance is as follows». The description fitted ʿAbd Allāh exactly. The hardly concealed tone of mockery with which al-Masʿūdī relates all this (Murūd̲j̲, iv. 88) is worth noting. According to Muslim scholars, this Iram d̲h̲āt al-ʿImād lay near ʿAden or between Ṣanʿāʾ and Ḥaḍramawt or between ʿOmān and Ḥaḍramawt, It should be noted that the form of the name Iram is South Arabian: Hamdānī mentions a hill and a well of the name Iram in South Arabia. This fact is a refutation of the opinion of Loth, who considers Aramaic references exclusively. It is likewise clear that we have not to accept the connection between the tribe Iram = Aram and Iram d̲h̲āt al-ʿImād which is assumed by Muslim tradition. — The story of the finding of the family tomb of ʿĀd b. Iram is found in D. H. Müller, Südarabische Studien (Site. ber. Akad. Wien, philos.-histor. Klasse, lxxxvi. 134 sqq.).

Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition

Ирам. Слово происходит один раз в Ḳur'ān (LXXXIX, 6): прохождение вызвало большие трудности для комментаторов, как в отношении значения слов, так и их грамматической конструкции. Некоторые читали'ādi, делая irama зависимым родительным падежом, а затем взяли Ирам в качестве капитала. Наиболее вероятным является то, что Ирам обозначает племя и находится в аппозиции с'ād in, и что'imād означает tentpole или высоту. Тогда Ирам может быть подразделением «ад», как предлагает аль-Шабари (ad loc). Позже мусульманские ученые предпочли взять Ирам в качестве города, и тогда дхати-л-ум мог означать «с колоннами»; это, как говорили, мраморные колонны Дамаска. Удивительно наблюдать за возрастающей разработкой рассказов об этом Ирам Дат аль-Имад. Одна общая история рассказывает, как она была построена около Адена Шаддадом б. «Как подражание раю и как он был тогда, как наказание за свою гордость, разрушенным торнадо и городом, погребенным в песке (Ятут, с. Цит.). В другой истории Александр Великий находит в Александрии руины большого здания с мраморными колоннами и надписью, рассказывающей, как она была построена как копия первого Ирама Дат аль-Имада. Еще одна история рассказывает, как в царствование Муавии бедуин обнаружил чудесные руины в песке.

Iram — The word occurs once in the Ḳurʾān (LXXXIX, 6): The passage has caused great difficulty to the commentators, both in respect of the meaning of the words and of their grammatical construction. Some read ʿādi , making irama a dependent genitive, and then took Iram to be the capital of ʿĀd. The most likely view is that Iram designates a tribe and is in apposition with ʿād in, and that ʿimād means tentpole or tallness. Iram may then be a subdivision of ʿĀd, as al-Ṭabarī suggests (ad loc). Later Muslim scholars preferred to take Iram as a town, and d̲h̲āti ’l-ʿimād could then mean ‘with the pillars’; this was said to be the marble columns of Damascus. It is fascinating to observe the increasing elaboration of the accounts of this Iram D̲h̲āt al-ʿimād. One common story tells how it was built near Aden by S̲h̲addād b. ʿĀd as an imitation of Paradise, and how he was then, as a punishment for his pride, destroyed by a tornado and the city buried in sand (Yāḳūt, loc cit.). In another story Alexander the Great finds at Alexandria the ruins of a great building with marble columns and an inscription telling how it was built as a replica of the first Iram D̲h̲āt al-ʿimād. Yet another story tells how in the reign of Muʿāwiya a bedouin found wonderful ruins in the sand.

Iram - Encyclopaedia of Islam Three

Iram is an ancient Arabian name most commonly associated in modern writing with a lost city in southeastern Arabia, the capital of the pre-Islamic people of Ad, whom God destroyed for their dis- belief (Cobb, 2:559; Clapp). The meaning of “Iram” has, however, undergone a complex evolution of varied and debated interpretations in both Muslim and European narratives.

Pre-Islamic Nabatean epigraphy uses rm as a toponym in northwestern Arabia (Savignac, 591; Macdonald, 3:76, n. 171; Hoyland, 39–40), near the modern border between Jordan and Saudi Arabia. The inscriptions support Sprenger (144), who postulated that Iram was in the ism region, based on its identifcation as an Arabised form of the “Aramaya” listed in Ptolemy’s geography (vi, 7, 27). The historian-geographer al-Hamdn (d. c.333/945) notes a well, Bir Iram, in the ism (ifat, 243), also suggestive that Iram was a pre-Islamic northern Arabian locale.

1. Iram in the Qur   n The name “Iram” also appears in Q 89:6–8, where it is mentioned with a pre-Islamic people, the d, as an example of God’s power to smite tyrants. Whether the Qurnic “Iram” was intended to refer to the pre-Islamic northern Arabian toponym is unclear: the precise meaning of the verses hinges on deciphering their ambiguous vocabulary and case vocalisations, and early Muslim Qurn readers adopted several possibilities (al-Khab, 10:418–20, has a list of attested vocalisations). One tradition reads the phrase in verses 89:6–7 as Ad Iram, implying that the Iram were a people related to the d.

An alternative reading has the verses Ad Iram, a possessive construction that could make “Iram” the name of the d’s city. The description in Q 89:7 of Iram as dht al-imd also gave rise to disagreement. Some exegetes interpreted it as meaning that the Iram were giants, whereas others interpreted the words to mean either “of columns” (suggesting that Iram was a substantial city) or “of tent poles” (suggesting that the Iram were a nomadic people). Each interpretation is grammatically permissible, and most pre-modern exegetes remained undecided as to whether Iram denoted a city or a tribe (Muqtil, 5:687–8; al-Akhfash, 2:578; al-abar, Jmi, 30:218–20; al-Qurub, 20:30–2). The context of the verses in Q 89 supports an interpretation of Iram as a location inhabited by the d, and al-Biq (d. 885/1480), one of the few pre-modern exegetes to adopt an expressly narra- tive (not syntactic) interpretation of the Qurn, asserts that Iram was the d’s city, not a tribe (8:416). Conversely, “Iram” appears frequently in pre-Islamic poetry as a reference to a bygone people and never as a reference to a city. Pre-Islamic poets cite Iram, often with d and occasion- ally with names of other ancient peoples, to express the idea that all things, even powerful peoples, inevitably pass away (Imru al-Qays, 208; Amr b. Qama, in al-Butur, al-amsa, 1:327; Jandal b. Ashma al-Anaz, in Ab Tammm, 162; Labd, 34, 108, 209, 378). The Iram also feature metaphorically in violent threats, in which a poet boasts he will dispatch his enemies to perdition, whence they will join the dead Iram (Rashd b. Rumay al-Anaz, in al-Bar 1:320; see also the early Muslim-era Amr b. Mad Karib, 184). Al-rith b. ilizza (f. 550–60 C.E.) uses the adjective iram to connote age, physical strength, or noble equanimity (Ibn al-Anbr, 492; al-Tabrz, 472). Al-Aghlab al-Ijl (d. c.20/641), a pre-Islamic poet whose long career extended into the early Islamic era, compares a leader to the Iram, also possibly as a metaphor of nobility (Ibn al-Anbr, 493). The coupling of Iram with d in Q 89:6–7 may thus be drawing from the familiar poetic lexicon for bygone peoples, converting names synonymous in poetry with ancient might into warnings of God’s power to annihilate unbelievers.

Umayyad and early Abbsid-era poets also cite Iram as a bygone people, with the same formulae as pre-Islamic poets and with additional allusions to the Qurn (al-Qam, 100, 103; al-uaya, 262; al-Awa al-Anr, in al-Butur al-amsa, 1:298). Likewise, early genealo- gists (Ibn Qutayba, 28; al-abar, Tarkh, 1:204, 207, 216) and lexicographers (al-Khall, 8:296; Ibn Durayd, 2:1068) endorsed the defnition of the Iram as a people related to the d. Al-Khall’s (d. 175/791) al-Ayn additionally defnes iram as a way-marker and/or grave cairn of the d, but these defnitions are not cited in glosses on Q 89:6–8, and extant texts suggest that most early Muslims probably interpreted the Quran’s “Iram” as a powerful nomadic tribe from the ancient Arabian past.

2. Iram becomes a city

The process by which writers reinterpreted Quran’s ic “Iram” as a city had a complex evolution. The toponymic association may have originated to justify the alternative vocalisation, Ad i Iram, of Q 89:6–7. Al-Azhar’s (d. 370/980) Tahdhb al-lugha, the frst dictionary to state that “Iram” might refer to the city of the d (11:254), cites the Qurn scholar al-Farr (d. 207/822–3) as the source of this interpretation. Al-Farr’s Man al-Qurn does argue for the possibility of interpreting “Iram” as a city to explain why Qurn readers vocalised Q 89:6–7 as a possessive (3:268), but neither al-Farr nor al-Azhar is dogmatic, and they accept that “Iram” could also mean a nomadic people related to the d.

The impetus for an exclusive interpretation of Iram as a substantial city perhaps derives from factional competition in early Islam. During the Umayyad and early Abbsid caliphates, an elite faction identifed as the Yamniyya (Southerner Arabs) articulated a boastful communal history in which they portrayed their pre-Islamic forebears as proto-Muslim urban empire-builders, in contrast to their rivals, the Northerner Arabs (known as Maadd, Nizr, or, later Adnn), whose ancestors they denigrated as primitive nomads (Webb). The Yamniyya counted the d amongst their ancestors, and they interpreted the Qurnic Iram as a splendid, many-columned imperial city constructed by the ancient d’s putative king Shaddd b. d, where he lived for the latter part of what was reckoned a reign of fve hundred years (Wahb b. Munabbih, 74; Ibn Sharya, 338; al-Hamdn, Ikll, 8:183; al-Masd, §827). The location of this Iram was variable: because the Yamniyya accorded Shaddd a world empire, some placed Iram in Yemen (near Abyan, outside of Aden, or in the aramawt, near modern Oman), while others identifed it as the original settlement of Alexandria or Damascus, interpreting those cities’ ruined Hellenistic pillars as the remains of Shaddd’s “Iram” (al-Masd, §926, §1143; al-Bakr, 1:140; al-Andalus, 1:45–6, 104). Such narratives are ascribed to the frst/seventh-century Yamn scholars Wahb b. Munabbih and Ubayd b. Sharya, but the texts probably coalesced in the early third/ninth century, and it was in that century that “Iram” appears in Arabic poetry as a city rather than a tribe (al-Butur, Dwn, 817; al-Hamdn, Ikll, 8:38; al-Butur elsewhere, Dwn, 1759, follows the older tradition of citing Iram as a tribe).

3. Iram in South Arabia

Whilst third-fourth/ninth-tenth century Iraqi writers remained tentative in identifying Iram variously as a tribe (al-abar, Tarkh, 1:204, 207; al-Jawhar, 2:1068) or with Damascus, Alexandria, or Yemen (Ibn Khurddhbih, 76; al-Masd, §1414; al-abar, Jmi, 30:222–3 prefers Yemen), Yemeni writers promoted the interpretation of Iram as a fabulous South Arabian city. The lexicographer Nashwn al-imyar (d. 573/1178) rejected the Damascus/Alexandria options in favour of either Aden or aramawt (1:230).

The historian-geographer al-Hamdn (d. c.333/945) was expressly critical of Iraqi historical narratives and placed Iram near Aden (al-Ikll, 8:33, 183). Al-Hamdn’s text is also the earliest extant attestation of wondrous associations with Iram. He noted that storytellers in an told of Iram’s treasures and added a tale that Iram disappeared into the sands, reappearing only once, with its bejewelled splendour intact, to a Bedouin during Muwiya’s caliphate (41–60/661–80) (al-Hamdn, al-Ikll, 8:33, 119, 183; al-Masd, §1414).

The mystique of Iram as a specifcally South Arabian “lost city” gained increasing currency after the story’s fourth/ tenth-century emergence and appeared in elaborate forms in Iraqi, Syrian, and Egyptian writing (al-Zamakhshar, 4:735–6; Yqt, 1:155–7; al-Ibshh, 2:232–3). And the story changed: the initial Yamn boast of Shaddd as a proto-Muslim subsided, and he was recharacterised into a tyrant who ordered Iram’s construction to rival Paradise, only to be smote by God on the eve of the city’s completion. The tale borrows motifs from the Thousand and one nights, and scholars were roundly critical of its embellishment, rejecting its historicity (al-Masd, §§1415–6; Yqt 1:157; Ibn Khaldn 1:20–2; Ibn ajar 11:82). Most exegetes contemporary with the growth of Iram’s legend in the mediaeval period also criticised the tales and maintained equivocal interpretations of Iram as either a city or a nomadic people (al-Qurub, 20:30–1; Ibn Kathr, 4:478; al-Bayw, 2:594).

4. Iram in the Western imagination

The latest chapter of Iram’s memorialisation, which decidedly promoted the impression of Iram as a lost South Arabian city, occurred in modern Western literature. Whilst Sprenger echoed the mediaeval Muslim scholarly circumspection when he chided the legendary Yemeni Iram narratives as “nonsense” (199), Washington Irving embraced the marvellous facets of the Arabic tales, and included “Irem” as a fabulous story in his 1832 The Alhambra (115–6). The British explorer Charles Doughty travelled through ism in 1876 and noted Sprenger’s placement of Iram in that region, but Doughty added some of Irving’s mythopoeic fair, coining a new interpretation of Iram as “the city of columns, the terrestrial paradise” (1:93–4). Doughty infuenced twentieth-century British travellers to Arabia, and the orientalist mystique he invoked of romantic adventure about a lost city in inhospitable sands inspired exploration. The efforts of Philby and Thomas to locate the site added a novel confation of Iram with a second lost-city tradition, that of Ubr/ Wabr (Philby 575–6; Thomas 260–5).

Mediaeval Arabic literature narrated wondrous tales about Wabr in Arabia’s Empty Quarter but did not equate it with the name in Q 89:6–8 (Ibn Qutayba, 27–8; al-abar, Tarkh, 1:203–4; Yqt, 5:356–9). The stories’ similar themes, however, merged in English writings, which located Iram-Ubr (“Atlantis of the Sands”) in southeastern Arabia. Expeditions uncovered the ruins of a late-mediaeval trading centre in southern Oman, which, despite its late date, became associated in the popular imagination with the pre-Islamic “Qurnic Iram” (Fiennes; Clapp). Twentieth-century Muslim Qurnic exegesis eschewed such romance: Sayyid Qub (d. 1966), like earlier exegetes, interprets Iram as an ancient nomadic people (8:156), but Arabic literary fgures embrace the wondrous, invoking Iram in mystical narratives as an enigmatic lost city (Jubrn; arw). Archaeologists have sought to reinterpret Q 89:6–8 via excavations in Jordan and have proposed that the Qurn’s Iram dht al-imd means a temple of “Iram on a high mount,” which they place at a site in the Wd Rum (Wd Iram) (Zayadine and Farès-Drappeau, 256), adducing yet another possible interpretation of the Iram puzzle.

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Studies

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Peter Webb