Saleh or Salih () is a

prophet In religion, a prophet or prophetess is an individual who is regarded as being in contact with a divinity, divine being and is said to speak on behalf of that being, serving as an intermediary with humanity by delivering messages or teachings ...

mentioned in the

Qur'an The Quran, also romanized Qur'an or Koran, is the central religious text of Islam, believed by Muslims to be a revelation directly from God ('' Allāh''). It is organized in 114 chapters (, ) which consist of individual verses ('). Besides ...

who prophesied to the tribe of

Thamud The Thamud () were an ancient tribe or tribal confederation in pre-Islamic Arabia that occupied the northwestern Arabian Peninsula. They are attested in contemporaneous Mesopotamian and Classical inscriptions, as well as Arabic ones from the e ...

in ancient Arabia, before the lifetime of the Islamic prophet

Muhammad Muhammad (8 June 632 CE) was an Arab religious and political leader and the founder of Islam. Muhammad in Islam, According to Islam, he was a prophet who was divinely inspired to preach and confirm the tawhid, monotheistic teachings of A ...

. The story of Salih is linked to the story of the She-Camel of God, which was the gift given by

God In monotheistic belief systems, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator, and principal object of faith. In polytheistic belief systems, a god is "a spirit or being believed to have created, or for controlling some part of the un ...

to the people of

when they desired a miracle to confirm that Salih was truly a prophet.

Historical context

The Thamud were a tribal confederation in the northwestern region of the

Arabian Peninsula The Arabian Peninsula (, , or , , ) or Arabia, is a peninsula in West Asia, situated north-east of Africa on the Arabian plate. At , comparable in size to India, the Arabian Peninsula is the largest peninsula in the world. Geographically, the ...

, mentioned in Assyrian sources in the time of

Sargon II Sargon II (, 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 generally believed to have be ...

. The tribe's name continues to appear in documents into the fourth century CE, but by the sixth century they were regarded as a group that had vanished long ago. According to the Quran, the city that Saleh was sent to was called ''Al-Ḥijr'' (), which corresponds to the

Nabataean The Nabataeans or Nabateans (; Nabataean Aramaic: , , vocalized as ) were an ancient Arab people who inhabited northern Arabia and the southern Levant. Their settlements—most prominently the assumed capital city of Raqmu (present-day Petr ...

city of

Hegra HEGRA, which stands for High-Energy-Gamma-Ray Astronomy, was an atmospheric Cherenkov effect, Cherenkov telescope for Gamma-ray astronomy. With its various types of detectors, HEGRA took data between 1987 and 2002, at which point it was dismantl ...

. The city rose to prominence around the 1st century AD as an important site in the regional caravan trade. Adjacent to the city were large, decorated rock-cut tombs used by members of various religious groups. At an unknown point in ancient times, the site was abandoned and possibly functionally replaced by

Al-'Ula al-Ula (), officially AlUla, is an ancient Arabian oasis city and governorate located in Medina Province, Saudi Arabia, northwest of the city of Medina. Situated in the Hejaz, a region that features prominently in the history of Islam as well ...

. The site has been referred to as ''Mada'in Salih'' () since the era of

and was named after his predecessor Salih. Saleh is not mentioned in any historical texts or in any of the Abrahamic scriptures that precede the Qur'an, but the account of Thamud's destruction may have been well known in ancient Arabia. The tribe's name is used in ancient Arabian poetry as a metaphor for "the transience of all things".

In Islam

Qur'an

According to Muslim tradition, the people of Thamud virtually relied upon Saleh for support. He was chosen by

as a

() and sent to preach against the selfishness of the wealthy and to condemn the practice of '' shirk'' (). Although Saleh preached for a sustained period of time, the people of Thamud refused to hear his warning and instead began to ask Saleh to perform a miracle for them. They said: “O Ṣâliḥ! We truly had high hopes in you before this. How dare you forbid us to worship what our forefathers had worshipped? We are certainly in alarming doubt about what you are inviting us to.” Saleh reminded his people of the castles and palaces they built out of stone, and of their technological superiority over neighbouring communities. Furthermore, he told them about their ancestors, the

ʿĀd ʿĀd (, ') was an ancient tribe in pre-Islamic Arabia. 'Ad is best known for being mentioned two dozen times in the Quran, often in conjunction with Thamud. Recently, it has been shown that 'Ad was a tribe that existed two millennia ago in the W ...

tribe, and how they too were destroyed for their sins. Some of the people of Thamud believed Saleh's words, but the tribal leaders refused to listen to him and continued to demand that he demonstrate a miracle to prove his prophethood. In response, God gave the Thamud a blessed

she-camel A camel (from and () from Ancient Semitic: ''gāmāl'') is an even-toed ungulate in the genus ''Camelus'' that bears distinctive fatty deposits known as "humps" on its back. Camels have long been domesticated and, as livestock, they provide ...

(), as both a means of sustenance and a test. The tribe was told to allow the camel to graze peacefully and avoid harming her.: And to the people of Thamûd We sent their brother Ṣâliḥ. He said, “O my people! Worship Allah—you have no other god except Him. A clear proof has come to you from your Lord: this is Allah’s she-camel as a sign to you. So leave her to graze ˹freely˺ on Allah’s land and do not harm her, or else you will be overcome by a painful punishment. But in defiance of Saleh's warning, the people of the tribe hamstrung the camel. Saleh informed them that they had only three more days to live before the wrath of God descended upon them. The people of the city were remorseful, but their crime could not be undone, and all the disbelieving people in the city were killed in an

earthquake An earthquakealso called a quake, tremor, or tembloris the shaking of the Earth's surface resulting from a sudden release of energy in the lithosphere that creates seismic waves. Earthquakes can range in intensity, from those so weak they ...

. Al-Hijr was rendered uninhabited and remained in ruins for all time thereafter. Saleh himself and the few believers who followed him survived. The story is expanded upon in Sūrat an-Naml of the Qur'an. Whilst the she-camel is not mentioned explicitly in this chapter, it states that nine men plotted to kill Salih and his whole family, a crime for which they were struck down by God three days later.

Muslim tradition

Muslim writers have elaborated upon the story of Saleh and the she-camel. Early Islamic tradition often involved a motif of the camel miraculously emerging from stone, often accompanied by a calf, and the production of milk from the camel.

Al-Tabari Abū Jaʿfar Muḥammad ibn Jarīr ibn Yazīd al-Ṭabarī (; 839–923 CE / 224–310 AH), commonly known as al-Ṭabarī (), was a Sunni Muslim scholar, polymath, historian, exegete, jurist, and theologian from Amol, Tabaristan, present- ...

states that Saleh summoned his people to a mountain, where they witnessed the rock miraculously split open, revealing the camel. The she-camel had a young calf. Saleh informed the Thamud that the older camel was to drink from their water source on one day, and they were to drink from it the next day. On days when they were not allowed to drink water, the camel provided them with milk. But God informed Saleh that a boy who would hamstring the camel would soon be born to the tribe, and that child was evil and grew unnaturally fast. The camel was indeed killed, and its calf cried out three times, signaling that the Thamud would be destroyed in three days. Their faces turned yellow, then red, then black, and they died on the third day as predicted. According to some Islamic scholars, the mother of Ismail, Hajar, was a granddaughter of Saleh. A similar tradition is related in an eighth-century commentary on Islam by

John of Damascus John of Damascus or John Damascene, born Yūḥana ibn Manṣūr ibn Sarjūn, was an Arab Christian monk, priest, hymnographer, and apologist. He was born and raised in Damascus or AD 676; the precise date and place of his death is not know ...

and is also mentioned in the works of

Ibn Kathir Abu al-Fida Isma'il ibn Umar ibn Kathir al-Dimashqi (; ), known simply as Ibn Kathir, was an Arab Islamic Exegesis, exegete, historian and scholar. An expert on (Quranic exegesis), (history) and (Islamic jurisprudence), he is considered a lea ...

References

External links