Thamud

The Thamud (Arabic: ثَمُود, romanized: Ṯamūd) were an ancient tribe or tribal confederation in pre-Islamic Arabia^[1] that occupied the northwestern Arabian Peninsula between the late-eighth century BCE, when they are attested in Assyrian sources, and the fifth century CE, when they served as Roman auxiliaries. The Kingdom of Thamud was the first existing kingdom on the Arabian peninsula, according to Assyrian and Roman sources. Arabian tradition holds that the Thamud kingdom was destroyed by God. It had no written law, but the tribal leader played the role of ruler. The Thamud are mentioned in contemporaneous Mesopotamian, Classical, and Arabian sources, including inscriptions attested to the Thamud themselves, located within a temple constructed circa 165–169 CE in honor of the local deity, ʾlhʾ. It is possible that multiple unrelated groups took on the name of Thamud; they probably spoke Old Arabic.^[2] The Thamud are not specially connected to the Thamudic scripts, an aggregate term for understudied writing systems of Ancient Arabia.

Kingdom of Thamud مملكة ثمود
8th century BC–5th century AD
Capital	Hegra
Common languages	Old Arabic
Religion	Arabian polytheism
Government	Monarchy
History
• Established	8th century BC
• Disestablished	5th century AD
Today part of	Saudi Arabia

The Quran mentions the Thamud as an example of an ancient polytheistic people who were destroyed by God for their sins. According to the Quran and the Islamic exegetical tradition, the Thamud were an early Arab tribe who rejected the message of the prophet Salih. When they cut the hamstring of a female camel that God had sent down for them, despite the prophet's warnings, they were annihilated, except for Salih and his followers.