of Aram, who falling into idolatry, the prophet Sâleh was sent to bring them back to the worship of the true GOD. This prophet lived between the time of Hûd and of Abraham, and therefore cannot be the 1 Or Uz. Gen. x. 22, 23. 2 Vide Kor. c. 89. Some make Ad the son of Amalek, the son of Ham; but the other is the received opinion. See D'Herbel. 51. 3 Vide Eund. 498. 4 Cap. 89. 5 D'Herbel. 51. 6 The Jews acknowledge Heber to have been a great prophet. Seder Olam. p. 2. 7 Al Beidâwi. 8 Poc. Spec. 35, &c. 1 Ibid, 36. 2 Jallâlo'ddin et Zamakhshari. 3 Kor. c. 7. 4 Or Gether, vide Gen. x. 23. same with the patriarch Sâleh, as Mr. d'Herbelot imagines.5 The learned Bochart with more probability takes him to be Phaleg.6 A small number of the people of Thamûd hearkened to the remonstrances of Sâleh, but the rest requiring, as a proof of his mission, that he should cause a she-camel big with young to come out of a rock in their presence, he accordingly obtained it of GOD, and the camel was immediately delivered of a young one ready weaned; but they, instead of believing, cut the hamstrings of the camel and killed her; at which act of impiety GOD, being highly displeased, three days after struck them dead in their houses by an earthquake and a terrible noise from heaven, which, some7 say, was the voice of Gabriel the archangel crying aloud, "Die, all of you." Sâleh, with those who were reformed by him, were saved from this destruction; the prophet going into Palestine, and from thence to Mecca,8 where he ended his days. This tribe first dwelt in Yaman, but being expelled thence by Hamyar the son of Sâba,9 they settled in the territory of Hejr in the province of Hejâz, where their habitations cut out of the rocks, mentioned in the Korân,10 are still to be seen, and also the crack of the rock whence the camel issued, which, as an eye-witness11 hath declared, is 60 cubits wide. These houses of the Thamûdites being of the ordinary proportion, are used as an argument to convince those of a mistake who who this people to have been of a gigantic stature.12 The tragical destructions of these two potent tribes are often insisted on in the Korân, as instances of GOD'S judgment on obstinate unbelievers. The tribe of Tasm were the posterity of Lûd the son of Sem, and Jadîs of the descendants of Jether.1 These two tribes dwelt promiscuously together under the government of Tasm, till a certain tyrant made a law that no maid of the tribe of Jadîs should marry unless first defloured by him;2 which the Jadisians not enduring, formed a conspiracy, and inviting the king and chiefs of Tasm to an entertainment, privately hid their swords in the sand, and in the midst of their mirth fell on them and slew them all, and extirpated the greatest part of that tribe; however, the few who escaped obtaining aid of the king of Yaman, then (as is said) Dhu Habshân Ebn Akrân,3 assaulted the Jadîs