For another lost land believed to be in Arabia known as Ubar or Wabar, seeAtlantis of the Sands.
Iram of the Pillars (Arabic:إرَم ذَات ٱلْعِمَاد,romanized: Iram dhāt al-ʿimād; an alternative translation isIram of the tentpoles), also called "Irum", "Irem", "Erum", or the "City of the pillars", is alost city mentioned in theQuran.[1][2]
The Quran mentions Iram in connection withʿimād (pillars):
89:6 Did you not see how your Lord dealt withʿĀd— 89:7 ˹the people˺ of Iram—with ˹their˺ great stature, 89:8 unmatched in any other land; 89:9 andThamûd who carved ˹their homes into˺ therocks in the ˹Stone˺ Valley; 89:10 and the Pharaoh of mighty structures? 89:11 They all transgressed throughout the land, 89:12 spreading much corruption there. 89:13 So your Lord unleashed on them a scourge of punishment. 89:14 ˹For˺ your Lord is truly vigilant.
There are several explanations for the reference to "Iram – who had lofty pillars". Some see this as a geographic location, either a city or an area, others as the name of a tribe.
Those identifying it as a city have made various suggestions as to where or what city it was, ranging fromAlexandria orDamascus to a city which actually moved or a city calledUbar.[3][4][5] Ubar, according to ancient and medieval authors, was a land instead of a city.[6]
As an area, it has been identified with the biblical region known asAram.[7] A more plausible candidate for Iram isWadi Ramm inJordan, as the Temple ofal-Lat at the foot ofJabal Ramm has some ancient inscriptions mentioning Iram and possibly the tribe ofʿĀd.[8][9]
It has also been identified as a tribe, possibly the tribe of ʿĀd, with the pillars referring to tent pillars. The mystic ad-Dabbagh has suggested that these verses refer to ʿĀd's tents with pillars, both of which are gold-plated. He claims that coins made of this gold remain buried and that Iram is the name of a tribe of ʿĀd and not a location.[10] TheNabataeans were one of the manynomadicBedouin tribes who roamed theArabian Desert and took their herds to where they could findgrassland and water. They became familiar with their area as the seasons passed, and they struggled to survive during bad years when seasonal rainfall decreased. Although the Nabataeans were initially embedded in the Aramean culture, theories that they have Aramean roots are rejected by modern scholars. Instead, archaeological, religious and linguistic evidence confirms that they are a North Arabian tribe.[1]
Iram became widely known to Western literature with the translation of the story "The City of Many-Columned Iram and Abdullah Son of Abi Kilabah" inThe Book of One Thousand and One Nights.[11]
In 1998, the amateur archaeologistNicholas Clapp proposed that Iram is the same as another legendary placeUbar, and he identifies Ubar as the archaeological site of Shisr inOman.[12] His hypothesis is not generally accepted by scholars.[6][8] The identification of Ubar as Shisr is also problematic, and even Clapp himself denied it later.[13]
Sunless Sea has Irem as aport of call, the city having been transported underground to a subterranean ocean.Fallen London, which exists in the same setting, likewise includes Irem as a location the player can visit late in the game.
InCivilization VI, when the player captures the last city belonging to an AI-controlledSuleiman I, Suleiman exclaims "Ruin! Ruin!Istanbul has become Iram of the Pillars, remembered only by the melancholy poets."[15]
H. P. Lovecraft, in his work "The Call of Cthulhu", uses the spelling "Irem" as referenced by a cult worshipping the Old Ones.[16] The Shadow Over Innsmouth also includes the "many-columned Y'ha-nthlei.", however due to its coastal nature also a reference to a different ""City of Pillars", the Etruscian name for a trade port at Gibraltar.
Iram is the theme ofDaniel Easterman's novelThe Seventh Sanctuary (1987).
^Sijilmāsī, Aḥmad ibn al-Mubārak (2007).Pure gold from the words of Sayyidī ʻAbd al-ʻAzīz al-Dabbāgh = al-Dhabab al-Ibrīz min kalām Sayyidī ʻAbd al-ʻAzīz al-Dabbāgh. John O'Kane, Bernd Radtke. Leiden, the Netherlands.ISBN978-90-474-3248-7.OCLC310402464.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
