“_And Arphaxad begat Salah; and Salah begat Eber._”[269]
According to some Mussulman writers, Oudh (Lud), the son of Shem, had a son named Ad; but, according to others, Ad was the son of Aram, son of Shem.
The tribes of Ad and Thamud lived near one another in the desert of Hedjaz, in the south of Arabia. The land of the people of Ad was nearer Mecca than the valley of Hidjr, and the valley of Hidjr is situated at the extremity of the desert on the road to Syria.
Never in all the world were there such great and mighty men as the Adites. Each of them was twelve cubits high, and they were so strong that if any of them stamped on the ground he sank up to his knees.
The Adites raised great monuments in the land which they inhabited. Wherever these Cyclopean edifices exist, they are called by the Arabs the constructions of the Adites.
God ordered the prophet Hud (Eber) to go to the Adites and preach to them the One true God, and turn them from idolatry. But the Adites would not hearken to his words, and when he offered them the promises of God, they said, “What better dwellings can He give us than those which we have made?” And when he spoke to them of God’s threatenings, they mocked and said, “Who can resist us who are so strong?”
For fifty years did the prophet Hud speak to the Adites, and their reply to his exhortations is preserved in the Koran, “O Hud, you produce no evidence of what you advance; we will not abandon our gods because of your preaching. We mistrust your mission. We believe that one of our gods bears a hatred against you.”
Hud replied, “I take God to witness, and you also be witnesses, that I am innocent of your polytheism.”[270]
The words of the Adites, “We believe that one of our gods bears a hatred against thee,” signified that they believed one of their gods had driven him mad.
During the fifty years that Hud’s mission lasted, the Adites believed neither in God nor in the prophet, with the exception of a very few, who believed in secret.
At the end of that time God withheld the rain from heaven, and afflicted the Adites with drought. All the cattle of Ad died, and the Adites fainted for lack of water. For three years no rain fell.
Hud said to the Adites, “Believe in God, and He will give you rain.”