Error in Quran and hadiths about Thamud

Salam. I just wrote this paper on the topic of Thamud and I believe it refutes the christian claim completely and since I don't own a blog, for now, I will post it here. I hope it helps someone, In sha Allah. I may not be able to respond anytime soon as I am busy, but once I am free, this will be my bread and butter, In Sha Allah.

While certain online Christian communities are abuzz with elation and glee, some Muslims are faced with difficulties in formulating a proper response to the latest Christian accusation. The Christians are claiming that the Qur�an�s statement about Thamud carving structures in the hills and mountains is demonstrably false as the structures are built not by the Thamud but by the Nabateans, who came much later. As is the usual case, the Christians are, 1. Jumping the gun, 2. Have not read their own bibles. 3. Have not invested any considerable time investigating the actual archeological claims.  I�d hate to be the one to rain on the �holy� Christian parade, but this inanity has to be responded to.

The Bible

As we�re dealing with an allegation that is mostly Christian in origin, I am going to start with what the Bible says about the topic. I do understand why most Christians are unaware of the fine details interspersed within the ponderous and drawn-out book. It�s not an easy read, especially as most of the stories leave the reader perplexed in terms of their relevancy to one�s personal life or attaining anything didactic that enriches or nurtures a relationship with God. But I digress. The Bible does contain verses about a particular nation known as the Edomites, who did carve out structures on mountains and who were destroyed by God. These verses can be found in multiple books, we will focus on Obadiah and Jeremiah. The following are four verses from Obadiah:

¹ The vision of Obadiah.

This is what the Sovereign Lord says about Edom�

We have heard a message from the Lord:
    An envoy was sent to the nations to say,
�Rise, let us go against her for battle��

² �See, I will make you small among the nations;
    you will be utterly despised.
³ The pride of your heart has deceived you,
    you who live in the clefts of the rocks^[a]
    and make your home on the heights,
you who say to yourself,
    �Who can bring me down to the ground?�
⁴ Though you soar like the eagle
    and make your nest among the stars,
    from there I will bring you down,�
declares the Lord.

A similar narrative can be found in Jeremiah 49:16

The terror you inspire
    and the pride of your heart have deceived you,
you who live in the clefts of the rocks,
    who occupy the heights of the hill.
Though you build your nest as high as the eagle�s,
    from there I will bring you down,�
declares the Lord.

The following commentary on the verses from Obadiah, found in biblestudytools.com, is rather revealing.

Obadiah 1:3

The pride of thine heart hath deceived thee
The Edomites were proud of their wealth and riches, which they had by robberies amassed together; and of their military skill and courage, and of their friends and allies; and especially of their fortresses and fastnesses, both natural and artificial; and therefore thought themselves secure, and that no enemy could come at them to hurt them, and this deceived them: thou that dwellest in the clefts of the rock;
their country was called Arabia Petraea, the rocky; and their metropolis Petra, the rock: Jerom says that they that inhabited the southern part of the country dwelt in caves cut out of the rock, to screen them from the heat of the sun: or, "thou that dwellest in the circumferences of the rock" ^F16; round about it, on the top of it, in a tower built there, as Kimchi and Ben Melech. Aben Ezra thinks that "caph", the note of similitude, is wanting; and that the sense is, thou thoughtest that Mount Seir could secure thee, as they that dwell in the clefts of a rock: whose habitation [is] high;
upon high rocks and mountains, such as Mount Seir was, where Esau dwelt, and his posterity after, him. The Targum is,

``thou art like to an eagle that dwells in the clefts of the rock, whose habitation is in a high place;''

this they were proud of, thinking themselves safe, which deceived them; hence it follows: that saith in his heart, who shall bring me down to the ground?
what enemy, ever so warlike and powerful, will venture to invade my land, or besiege me in my strong hold? or, if he should, he can never take it, or take me from hence, conquer and subdue me.

Thus, from the aforementioned verses we have gleaned the following: 1. There existed a nation called the Edomites. 2. They lived in the kingdom of Edom, which is about 200 or so miles from Madian Saleh, where, supposedly, the Qur�anic Thamud lived, although the Thamud could have lived in multiple areas, including Petra 3. They carved-out habitations on the hills and mountains. 4. They felt that their habitations would, somehow, secure them from destruction. 5. God destroyed them.

The Edomites and Thamud

What we do know about the Edomites, historically, is that they lived in and around Petra before the Nabateans came. If the Nabateans carved out the structures on the hills and mountains of Petra and Median Saleh, as the Christians allege, then both the Qur�an and the Bible are in error, which I don�t agree with. I believe carving out structures in hills and mountains may have been a common practice within the ancient Arabia and its surroundings based on both the Biblical and Quranic accounts. However, as the Christians have proposed an objection to the notion of any other people carving structures in hills and mountains prior to the Nabateans, this leaves the Christians with the following options: (1). Amend their accusation to now include the Bible also. (2). Claim that the Edomites are not Thamud thus the verses are irrelevant. However, that does not solve the dilemma of who carved out the hills and mountains in Petra because the Edomites existed prior to the Nabateans, who according to the Christians were the ones who carved out the mountains and hills of Petra and Madian Saleh in 1^st or 2^nd century B.C. (3). Ignore the entire thing and continue to spread their deception and lies.  As for option 2, we know next to nothing about the Thamud. They very well could be the predecessors of the Edomites as they lived around the same area, and according to the Bible, they practiced the tradition of carving dwellings into the rocks. The Thamud were Arabs, and the Bible tells us in Genesis 28:9 that Esau�the father of the Edomites-- married into the Ishmaelites, so that makes Edomites half Arabs also. The Edomites can also be a separate nation and through the passage time they shared history, tradition, and custom with the remnants of the Thamud. They may have even intermingled to the point of losing any distinction along ethnic lines as there is no good reason or evidence to preclude the idea that the Thamud also ventured and lived in Petra and the surrounding areas. Thus, the possibility exists that the Edomites copied the mountainous dwellings of the Thamud, just as the Nabateans may have copied�or took over-- the architectural style of the Edomites or the Thamud and added their own flavor.

The Nabateans

Now we come to the archeological matters concerning the Nabateans. What do we know about the Nabateans? Well, next to nothing. According to Dr. Nehme, a senior research scientist at the French National Center for Scientific Research, the Nabateans have left us with almost no written material that would shed any light on their origins or even daily affairs. She states that all we have are �A few papyri, which are mainly private contracts, and thousands of graffiti scattered on the rocks, 90% of which contain only the name of the individual who wrote it, his father�s name, and a formulaic greeting�. What we do know is that the Nabateans lived a nomadic life style. According to the Greek historian, Diodorus Siculus, the Nabateans �have a law neither to sow corn nor to plant any fruit-bearing plant, nor to use wine, nor to build a house. This law they hold because they judge that those who possess these things will be easily compelled by powerful men to do what is ordered them because of their enjoyment of these things".

It becomes rather implausible that a people who a �had a law� against building a house, would then start constructing breathtakingly massive structures from the rocks of the mountains themselves. It�s also implausible that a people who would be at the helm of such epic architectural and engineering achievements would not even make mention of it, or at least keep a record of it.  Although, implausible, but not impossible. Because we�re left with no records which can help in our archeological inquiry, even dating the structures becomes a difficult, and perhaps, an impossible task. How archeologists date the tombs and other structures is primarily based on the inscriptions found in them. This poses problematic. Imagine if in a thousand years, the United States is a completely different landscape, much of it devoid of inhabitants and all of the history associated with its people are lost. Now imagine if people arrive from Latin America, find Mount Rushmore, and make a few inscriptions on it. An archeologist studying Mount Rushmore 2000 years after the inscriptions may well deduce that the statues of Mount Rushmore were made by Latin Americans and even guess the date incorrectly. It is possible that Edomites and or Thamud did carve out structures in the region, Nabateans, who came later, were inspired at some point during their history by the structures and proceeded to make a few of their own. They also could have written inscriptions on the many structures that already existed. The Nabatean inscriptions are the ancient equivalent of graffiti, which humans even today have a predilection for. It�s almost impossible to know for certain that the many tombs with Nabatean inscriptions are indeed constructed by them, especially when we know that only 15% of the area in Petra has been excavated and examined. 85 percent of the region is still untouched, and hidden. What the hidden 85 percent will reveal remains to be seen. The same can be said of Median Saleh, much of the area is still hidden under sand.

Certain objections can and may arise with the above narrative. 1. What is uncovered thus far reveal that the structures are not dwellings, but tombs. 2. The hadith reports the prophet (pbuh) as having passed Median Saleh and described the ruins as �their dwellings� referring to the Thamud.  As for objection number one, as far as my research has shown, the only reason that the carved-out structures are considered tombs is due to various rectangular carved out niches inside them where the dead bodies were to be placed. I have yet to find a shred of evidence of a dead body that was placed in any of the recesses in the walls. If they were made for dead bodies, it stands to reason that we should find at least one dead body in them. If anyone has evidence of at least one dead body having been found in the recesses, I�m open to change my mind. There is no good reason to suggest that these �tombs� never served as a place of dwelling, as they are large enough to do so. This structure is not only large enough to house several individuals, but contains benches which suggests that it served some social function, hence it can qualify to be called a place of dwelling. According to Saudi-archeology website, an academic website aimed at archiving the rock images and providing archeological information on them, the structure may have been used for holding �sacred feasts.� We have a good perspective of the size of these supposed tombs in this picture, as the fa�ade has been destroyed. It is large enough to house individuals, should they have chosen to live inside them. We have to be open to the idea that a person living thousands of years ago will have a different concept of a place of dwelling than we, in the 21^st century, do. It must also be kept in mind that not all of the structures have been found as of yet. We cannot preclude the notion that structures that are completely different from what has been found so far, will be found in the future. Objection number 2 is not a major problem once we consider the various factors involved. It may very well be that during the time of the prophet, certain structures were still apparent to them that are now hidden due to natural occurrences, such as earthquakes, accretion of sand and erosion with time. Even if the prophet saw these exact structures which are visible today and we can, hypothetically, prove beyond a shadow of doubt that no one ever lived in them, and he took them to be the dwellings of the Thamud, that isn�t a major problem. The prophet was a man of his times and of his own personal experiences, he could have attributed what he saw to the Thamud due to the fact that the Thamud lived on the exact region as these ruins. Not every opinion that he held was necessarily a divine revelation. But given the possibility that these ruins could have once been created, either completely or partially, by the Thamud and taken later by the Edomites in Petra and then the Nabateans, who inscribed graffiti on them�their inscriptions are exactly that�or even carved out recesses inside of them, there isn�t an unsurmountable problem.

So, in summary, The Qur�an makes a claim that in a particular time in history, a people known as Thamud built structures on the hills and mountains. These people incurred the wrath of God and were destroyed. The Bible makes a claim that a particular time in history, a people who lived in in the kingdom of Edom�Edomites predate the Nabateans or the current historically accepted date of the structures carved from the mountains�carved out structures in the hills and mountains. These people incurred the wrath of God and were destroyed. We hardly know anything about the Nabateans aside of their nomadic life-style, which is not consonant with building these incredible structures. The Nabateans have not left us with any records, thus inscriptions become the primary dating of these structures. Because inscriptions cannot be relied upon with 100 percent certainty, it�s possible that the inscriptions are Nabatean while the structures are not. In my research, I did discover that the tombs do contain �pre-Nabatean inscriptions�. It does not state, however, who made the inscriptions. Like Petra, much of the ruins are still hidden, we can�t make absolute conclusions unless and until we have access to all of the monuments, tombs, structures, which are still hidden. Thus, if the Qur�an is in error about the identities of whoever carved out the structures in Madian Saleh�or wherever else the Thamud lived--the Bible is also in error when it claims a pre-Nabatean people carved out structures in the mountains of Edom. I believe neither are in error. Based on the Quranic, Biblical, and the lack of archeological evidence which can conclusively show that every single structure that is excavate, and those that will be excavated in the future, are all Nabatean in origin, I believe carving out structures on hills and mountains originated with the Thamud, which was later adopted by the Edomites, which later still, was adopted by the Nabateans. If the Bible tells us nothing more, at least it illustrates that carving out structures on mountains predated the Nabateans, and that is all we need to refute the Christian allegation against the Quran. God knows best.

 I hope the Christians, after having read this, will decide to do what�s ethical and moral. I hope they remove whatever articles they have written on this topic, as it�s beyond question that the Qur�an did not make an error on this topic, given that the Bible makes similar claims, and given that we know almost nothing about the Nabateans, and that the majority of the structures�85 percent in Petra, and a major portion in Median Saleh�are still hidden under ground.