The frontiers of Midian were always vague. According to the Bible Moses met Jethro in the “land of Midian,” which suggests that the peninsula of Sinai was included in Midian at the time. Midian is called Madian in the Septuagint and by the Arab writers. Antoninus Martyr (_c._ _a.d._ 530) held that the city Pharan, situated between the convent and Egypt, was in “the land of Midian” with its inhabitants descended from Jethro (c. 40). Makrizi († 1441) described Madian as of wide extent including many cities, chief among which were El Khalasa and El Sanuto. “On the side of the sea of Kalzouna (_i.e._ Suez) and El Tor the cities of Madian are Faran, El Ragah (_i.e._ Raithou), Kolzoum, Aila and Madian. In the town of Madian there are still to-day wonderful ruins and gigantic columns.”[113] In modern parlance the term Midian is applied to the eastern shore of the Gulf of Arabia, between Akaba and Muweileh, which has made some writers believe that Moses went into this part of Arabia, and further led to the identification of Jethro of Scripture with Shoeib, a prophet of the land of Midian. Sir Richard Burton in 1877 visited the ruins of the city of Midian, the position of which agreed with that of Madiama mentioned by Ptolemy.[114] The valleys which here cut into the high plain of Nedched contained the remains of silver, copper and gold mines, and near the city were great loculi cut into the rock which were known as the Mughair (caves of) Shoeib. Shoeib was one of the prophets of the Arab past. In the Koran we read, “And we sent to Madian, their brother Shoeib. He said, O my people, worship God, no other God have you than He: give not short weight and measure: I see indeed that you revel in good things, but I fear with you the punishment of the all encompassing day.... And when our decree came to pass, we delivered Shoeib and his companions in faith, and a violent tempest overtook the wicked, and in the morning they were found prostrate in their houses as if they had never dwelt in them. Was not Madian swept off even as Themoud was swept off?” (xi. 89). According to other passages, an earthquake put an end to the dwellers in Al Ayka, the forest of Madian, who treated their apostles as liars (vii. 90, xxix. 30). The name of Shoeib now attaches to the valley in Sinai in which lies the great convent, and tradition identified Shoeib of the forest of Midian with Jethro, the priest of Midian of the Bible. Their identification is said by Sir Richard Burton to go back to the Arab writer El Farga of about A.D. 800.