In The Great Khan’s Tent Presents: Ramadan/Ramzan Special Episode Part 2

Welcome to In The Great Khan’s Tent Presents: Ramadan or Ramzan, if you prefer, Special Episode Part 2!

In our final special episode for this holy month of Ramadan, we delve into two tales of lesser known and uniquely Arab, Prophets, Salih (A.S.) who was sent to the people of Thamud, located in what we would know as present day Saudi Arabia, and Shu’ayb (A.S.) who was sent to two groups of people, the people of Midian and the people of the Thicket, both of whom are also located in the present day region of Saudi Arabia.

The tale of Salih (A.S.) is an interesting one and delves into the problems of asking a prophet for a sign of his prophethood. In Salih (A.S.) case, he had given the people of Thamud a she-camel which provided them with endless milk but their hatred and jealousy against him caused them to strike out against the camel and invite their own destruction. Of interesting note here is that the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), does interact with the legacy of Salih (A.S.) and the remains left after Allah destroyed them. He warns his companions, as he travels through this region, to not drink the water or even enter the town. Furthermore, the Prophet (PBUH) warns of people of asking for signs of prophethood since it is tantamount that people are really asking for the destruction of themselves and their people.

The tale of Shu’ayb (A.S.) is unique from the tale of Hud (A.S.) and that of Salih (A.S.) in that while Shu’ayb (A.S.) did ask people to come to righteousness, he also especially targeted the people of Midian and the people of the Thicket to stop exploiting people through devious means particularly through modified and erroneous use of weights and measures as well as to stop them from highway robbery.

In the next episode we will continue our retelling of the One Thousand and One Nights with the continuation of “The Story of Ghanim the son of Ayyub, the Distracted Slave of Love”.