Like in any other culture, mythical cities also existed in ancient Arabia. A famous one is Iram That Al-Imad (Iram of the columns) that was mentioned in the Holy Quran and described as “incomparable”.
But what’s the story behind it? One of the many legends claim that it was built by a king Shaddad ibn Aad who was an avid reader of old religious books. King Shaddad was fascinated by the description of paradise and the comfort it encompasses that he decided to build something similar on earth.
The construction took three hundred years without stop. Having pretty good genes of the ancients, he lived to be nine hundred (hardly missing the inauguration of his legendry city). On that day, it’s said that Shaddad was killed along with his entourage by God’s wrath for his impiety.
Being mentioned in the Holy Quran meant that many Muslim travellers went looking for it and claiming to come across it. The most famous mention of Iram That Al-Imad in Islamic history was at the time of Muawiya ibn Abi Sufyan, a companion of prophet Muhammad (PBUH) and the founder of the Umayyad Caliphate in the Levant.
It’s stated that he had heard the story of another companion that came across the city by chance. The companion was shepherding some camels in the desert of Yemen when they got lost and he went looking for them. He said that he came across a grand city with a huge fort in the middle and high palaces surrounding it.
Thinking that the place was inhabited, he went up to ask about his lost camels to be welcomed by huge gates that he’d never seen the like of before. The gates were adorned with rubies that shone in the sun reflecting light between the fort and the city. The companion entered the abandoned place in awe to find that the fort was as big as a town with many palaces built on columns of peridots and rubies.
Each palace had stories of rooms built of gold and silver and adorned with pearls and other precious stones. He also saw rivers running through the city surrounded by trees of different fruits untouched. It’s said that Muawiya consulted his famous historian Ka’ab Al-Ahbar who confirmed that it was the legendry Iram That Al-Imad indeed.
Many historians doubt this meeting ever happening as Ka’ab died almost thirty years before it.
Another legendry place that fascinated Arabs was the location of the tribes of Ya’jooj wa Ma’jooj (Gog and Magog) as their story was also mentioned in the holy book.
Many old historians describe it as being somewhere in Tibet where: “The mountains have snow that never melts, fog that never seize and many great snakes”.
One of those historians — Ibn Al-Wardi — claimed that a traveller at the time of the Abbasid Caliphate called Salam Al-Turjuman had reached the place. He saw the great wall that was built between the two mountains by Dhu Al-Qarnayn -still debatable if he was Alexander the Great or not — to stop the tribes from crossing and desolating neighbouring nations.
Ibn Salam knew forty languages and his trip took two years and four months. He alleges to have looked over the wall and witnessed the tribe who were: “Around three-foot-tall with perfectly round faces and round flappy ears that reaches their shoulders. They sleep on one ear and cover with the other. Their skin varies between white and red and their language is whistling. They have claws and fangs like beasts. They try escaping the wall on daily bases to be thrown down by a sudden gale”.
Rasha al Raisi is a certified skills trainer and the author of: The World According to Bahja. rashabooks@yahoo.com
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