Iram, the lost City? Quran is proven by facts. Allahu Akbar!

Assalam 'Alaikum Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh

Since Allah revealed Quran, its proving that it is the word of Nobody Else other than Allah. Through different means and ways, with facts.

Let us ponder a little about the verses I quote below.

Allah says in Surah al-Fajr, verses 6 to 13, "Have you not considered how your Lord dealt with 'Aad - [With] Iram - who had lofty pillars, The likes of whom had never been created in the land? And [with] Thamud, who carved out the rocks in the valley? And [with] Pharaoh, owner of the stakes? - [All of] whom oppressed within the lands And increased therein the corruption. So your Lord poured upon them a scourge of punishment."

In this post, we are going to discuss about the one I have made bold up in that verse inshaAllah.

Ubar, a name of a region or a name of a people, was mentioned in ancient records, and was spoken of in folk tales as a trading center of the Rub' al Khali desert in the southern part of the Arabian peninsula. It is estimated that it lasted from about 3000 BC to the 1st century AD. 


According to legends, it became fabulously wealthy from trade between the coastal regions and the population centers of the Arabic peninsula and Europe. The region became lost to modern history, and was thought to be only a figment of mythical tales. Some confusion exists about the word "Ubar". In classical texts and Arabic historical sources, Ubar refers to a region and a group of people, not to a specific town. Ptolemy's 2nd century map of the area shows "Iobaritae". It was only the late Medieval version of The One Thousand and One Nights, in the fourteenth or 15th century, that romanticized Ubar and turned it into a city, rather than a region or a people.

The Quran (1,400 years ago) mentions a certain city by the name of Iram (a city of pillars) [Quran: al-Fajr 89:7], which was apparently not known in ancient history and non-existent as far as historians were concerned. But the December 1978 edition of the National Geographic Magazine records that in 1973, the city of Ebla was excavated in Syria. The city was discovered to be 4,300 years old. Researchers found in the library of Ebla a record of all of the cities with which Ebla had done business. On the list was the specific name of the city of "Iram" (and not the name of the general region of Ubar). The people of Ebla had apparently done business with the people of "Iram".

Recent discoveries have brought Iram out of the realm of fable and into history.

In the early 1980s a group of researchers interested in the history of Iram used NASA remote sensing satellites, ground penetrating radar, Landsat program data and images taken from the Space Shuttle Challenger as well as SPOT data to identify old camel train routes and points where they converged. These roads were used as frankincense trade routes around 2800 BC to 100 BC.

One area in the Dhofar province of Oman was identified as a possible location for an outpost of the lost civilization. A team including adventurer Ranulph Fiennes, archaeologist Juris Zarins, filmmaker Nicholas Clapp, and lawyer George Hedges, scouted the area on several trips, and stopped at a water well called Ash Shisar. "The Frankincense Route Emerges From the Desert". New York Times. 1992-04-21. Retrieved 2007-12-06. 

Near this oasis was located a site previously identified as the 16th century Shis'r fort. Excavations uncovered an older settlement, and artifacts traded from far and wide were found. This older fort was found to have been built on top of a large limestone cavern which would have served as the water source for the fort, making it an important oasis on the trade route to Iram. As the residents of the fort consumed the water from underground, the water table fell, leaving the limestone roof and walls of the cavern dry. Without the support of the water, the cavern would have been in danger of collapse, and it seems to have done so some time between 300-500 AD, destroying the oasis and covering over the water source.

Four subsequent excavations were conducted by Dr. Juris Zarins, tracing the historical presence by the people of 'Ad, the assumed ancestral builders of Iram.

Wassalam 'Alaikum Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh