Hud has sometimes been identified with Eber, an ancestor of the Israelites who is mentioned in the Old Testament. He is said to have been a subject of a mulk named after its founder, ‘Ad, a fourth-generation descendant of Noah : The other tribes claimed to be present at this time in Arabia, were the Thamud, Jurhum, Tasam, Jadis, Amim, Midian, Amalek Imlaq, Jasim, Qahtan, Banu Yaqtan and others. The Quran gives the location of ʿĀd as being Al-Aḥqāf. It is believed to have been in the southern part of the Arabian Peninsula, possibly in eastern Yemen and/or western Oman. In November 1991, a settlement was discovered and hypothesized for Ubar, which is thought to be mentioned in the Qur'an as Iram dhāṫ al-‘Imād, and may have been the capital of ʿĀd. One of the members of the original expedition, archeologist Juris Zarins, however, later concluded that the discovery did not represent a city called Ubar. In a 1996 interview on the subject he said:
Narrative in the Quran
This is a brief summary of Hud's narrative, with emphasis on two particular verses: The people of ʿĀd were extremely powerful and wealthy and they built countless buildings and monuments to show their power. However, the ʿĀd people's wealth ultimately proved to be their failure, as they became arrogant and forsook God and began to adopt idols for worship, including three idols named Samd, Samud and Hara. Hud, even in childhood, remained consistent in prayer to God. It is related through exegesis that Hud's mother, a pious woman who had seen great visions at her son's birth, was the only person who encouraged Hud in his worship. Thus, the Lord raised up Hud as a prophet for the ʿĀd people. When Hud started preaching and invited them to the worship of only the true God and when he told them to repent for their past sins and ask for mercy and forgiveness, the ʿĀd people began to revile him and wickedly began to mock God's message. Hud's story epitomizes the prophetic cycle common to the early prophets mentioned in the Quran: the prophet is sent to his people to tell them to worship God only and tells them to acknowledge that it is God who is the provider of their blessings The Quran states: Hud preached to the people of ʿĀd for a long time. The majority of them, however, refused to pay any notice to his teachings and they kept ignoring and mocking all he said. As their aggression, arrogance and idolatry deepened, God, after plenty of warning, sent a thunderous storm to finish the wicked people of ʿĀd once and for all. The destruction of the ʿĀd is described in the Quran:
In other religions
and Christianity do not venerate Hud as a prophet and, as a figure, he is absent from the Bible. However, there are several pre-Quranic references to individuals named Hud or possessing a name which is connected to Hud as well as references to the people of ʿĀd. The name Hud also appears in various ancientinscriptions, most commonly in the Hadhramaut region. Hud is referred to in the Baha'i Faith as a Prophet who appeared after Noah and prior to Abraham, who exhorted the people to abandon idolatry and practice monotheism. His endeavors to save His people resulted in their "willful blindness" and His rejection. (The Kitab-i-Iqan, The Book of Certitude, p. 9
Place of burial
Several sites are revered as the tomb of Hud. The most noted site, Kabr Nabi Hud, is located in the deserted village in Hadhramaut, Yemen, and is a place of frequent Muslim pilgrimage. Robert Bertram Serjeant in his study of the pilgrimage rite to the tomb of Hud verified on the spot the facts related by al-Harawi, who described, at the gate of the Mosque, on the west side, the rock onto which Hud climbed to make the call to prayer and mentioned the grotto of Balhut at the bottom of the ravine. Around the tomb and neighborhood, various ancient ruins and inscriptions have been found. However, as is often the case with the graves of prophets, other locations have been listed. A possible location for his qabr is said to be near the Zamzam Well in Saudi Arabia, or in the south wall of the Umayyad Mosque in Syria. Some scholars have added that the Masjid has an inscription stating: "Hadha Maqam Hud" ; others, however, suggest that this belief is a local tradition spewing from the reverence the locals have for Hud.
