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 to the south of Palestine, with the Ḫittites rather than with the Arab clan of the Ḫatti.

The tribe of Idiba’il and the Kêpu Idibi’il, to whom Tiglath Pileser IV assigned fifteen settlements in the territory of Askalon, are certainly the same. Idiba’il, or Idibi’il, was probably the name of the ruling family, and a tribe subordinate to it might well be designated by its name.

The Assyrian Idiba’il is identical with the Biblical tribe Adbe’êl, which Genesis, 25: 13, includes among the Ishmaelites. Its encampments were near and to the southwest of Gaza, near the actual Egyptian frontier, and it had to report to the great Assyrian king on whatever happened near the frontier.

To cite another Assyrian account, we find that Sargon II narrates (Cylinder Inscription [ Rawlinson, Cuneiform Inscriptions, Vol. 1, pl. 36; Lyon, Sargon, p. 4], line 20; see also F. E. Peiser in: Schrader, op. cit., Vol. 2, p. 42) that in 715 B. C. he defeated the tribes of the Tamudi, Ibadidi, Marsimani, and Ḫajappa and settled their survivors in Samaria.

The Tamudi are identical with the classical Thamudeni. Agatharchides, Periplus (Photius’ version [Müller, Geographi, Vol. 1]), p. 179, refers to a stony shore one hundred stades long lying behind the small islands situated near the long gulf of the Red Sea and belonging to the territory of the Thamudenoi Arabs. The same statement, with minor changes, is repeated by Diodorus, Bibliotheca historica, III, 44.

Uranius, Arabica (Müller, Fragmenta, Vol. 4), p. 525, states that Thamuda borders upon the Arabian Nabataeans.

Ptolemy, Geography, VI, 7: 4, mentions the Thamyditai and (op. cit., VI, 7: 21) the Thamydenoi in northwestern Arabia.

According to the inscription the temple at Ṛwâfa, built between the end of the year 166 and the beginning of the year 169 A. D. by the “Thamudenon ethnos” or Thamudenic tribe, the Thamudeni owned the Ḥarrat al-ʻAwêreẓ and the Ḥarrat ar-Ṛha’ in the middle of the second century of our era. Their encampments were thus to the west of the oasis of Tejma near the great trade route leading from southwestern Arabia to Syria and Egypt.

The Moslem tradition asserts (Ḳorân, 7: 71; 26: 141; 54: 28; 91: 13) that the Ṯamûd tribe built rock dwellings in the oasis of al-Ḥeǧr. Ṣâleḥ, the messenger of Allâh, warned them not to be proud of their earthly possessions but to fear Allâh. They did not believe him and wanted him to attest his message by miracle, but, instead of granting them a miracle, Ṣâleḥ admonished them not to grudge their water to Allâh’s camel and not to harm it. The people of Ṯamûd killed the camel at the instigation of a wicked man, and there arose a terrible storm which destroyed them all. This tradition tallies with the classical accounts and with the inscription at Ṛwâfa. The environs of the oasis of al-Ḥeǧr belonged to the people of Ṯamûd, and it is certain that the whole shore also belonged to them, for the tribes encamping on the shore had to acknowledge the