Hūd

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Hūd with the people 'Ad (in the miniature collection "History of the Prophets")

Hūd ( Arabic هود, DMG Hūd ) is a prophet mentioned in the Koran sura 11 of the same name (possibly the prophet Eber or Heber of the Bible), who is said to have been sent to the ancient oriental people of the ʿĀd . He is mentioned in the Koran in 25 Ayat .

Islamic lore

According to Islamic tradition, Hud is the first prophet after the Flood, which was about 800 years ago when he was called to be a prophet. He was chosen to be the Messenger of Allah at the age of 40 to be the people of the 'Ad. Even one of them, he rejects the idea that the people of 'Ad are of divine sex and takes sides with the host of slaves who have been subjugated by the people' Ad. The people of 'Ad were feared throughout Arabia and were very powerful. It controlled important trade routes through brute force and thus secured their monopoly.

After countless years of preaching for the cause of Allah and exhorting to return to true belief in the one God, Hud was spared, benefiting only from the position of his family. Branded a madman, he took refuge in the woods, where he prayed to God.

He found his following almost without exception among the slaves, to whom he gave hope and courage. These new “Muslim” recruits did not rise up against the 'Ad ruling class, but rather exercised patience and steadfastness. They expanded the garden of Iram for the tyrannical god-king Shaddad, whom the latter wanted to let the earthly paradise taste for the benefit of his people, only by virtue of his divine nature.

According to Islamic tradition, God let the once lush garden of Iram dry up and prevented the fertile land from rain for seven years. Concerned about the future of his people, King Shaddad sent ambassadors to related Mecca to have them pray for rain there. They should ask the idols on the mountain at Arafat for a drop of water so that their people might be well again.

God revealed three clouds of different colors to them, and they chose the black one among them, thinking that it was enriched with raindrops. But according to Islamic lore, the cloud was filled with searing heat and infinitely hot, scorching wind, coming from hell, and was waiting to invade the garden of Iram. The ambassadors went back to their people with the cloud in tow, and there the unbelievers were caught in the wrath of God.

Individual versions, like that of the Naqshbandīya , digress in an all too fantastic description of the circumstances on which the people 'Ad was based. However, one thing remains very obvious: Hud, the prophet and messenger of God, should turn people around and show them faith in the one God - a typical message that is actually inherent in all Islamic messengers. Hud is said to have lived for 150 years.

The pilgrimage to his grave

One suspected burial place ( qabr ) of Hūds is in Hadramaut (Yemen), 70 kilometers east of the city of Tarīm . This place is an annual target ziyara -Wallfahrt in the Islamic month of Sha'ban . The pilgrimage also includes a visit to the sacred precinct ( ḥauṭa ) of ʿAināt 15 kilometers east of Tarīm, which was established in the 16th century by the Sufi scholar Abū Bakr ibn Sālim (d. 1584).

According to other traditions, Hūd's grave is said to be between the Zamzam fountain and the corner of the Kaaba or in the south wall of the Umayyad mosque in Damascus .

Hūd as a name

Although neither Hud nor the 'Ad can be proven with certainty in terms of religious history. B. also the Prophet Salih , the name Hud was adopted in Arab families. The best known example of this comes from Islamic Spain in the Middle Ages.

  • Beni Hud (Banu Hud), the 11th century Andalusian Hudid dynasty in Saragossa
  • Saif ad-Daula "Zafadola" ibn Hud, a descendant of this dynasty in Valencia in the 12th century
  • Mutawakkil "Abenhud" Ibn Hud , a (supposed) descendant of this dynasty in the once Islamic Murcia of the 13th century

literature

  • Marianus Hundhammer: Adoration of the prophets in Ḥaḍramaut: the Ziyāra according to Qabr Hūd from a diachronic and synchronous perspective. Schwarz, Berlin, 2010.
  • ʿAbd al-Qādir ibn Muḥammad al-Ṣabbān: Ziyārāt wa-ʿādāt. Visits and customs. The visit to the tomb of the prophet Hūd . Arabic with Engl. Translated by Linda Boxberger. American Inst. For Yemeni Studies, Ardmore PA, 1998.
  • RB Serjeant: "Hūd and other Pre-Islamic Prophets of Hadramawt" in Le Muséon 67 (1954) 121-179.
  • AJ Wensinck, Charles Pellat: Art. "Hūd" in The Encyclopaedia of Islam. New Edition Vol. III, pp. 537b-538a.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ See Hundhammer: Prophet veneration . 2010, pp. 97-102.