tribe to which belonged Šuʻejb’s fellow countrymen, who asserted that they were descended from Madjan, the son of Abraham. Muḥammed ibn Salâma ibn Ǧaʻfar al-Ḳuḍâʻi (died 1062 A. D.) reckoned Madjan with its environs among the districts of southern Egypt. Muḥammed ibn Mûsa al-Ḥâzimi (died 1188 A. D.) said that Madjan was situated between Wâdi al-Ḳura’ and Syria. The poet Kuṯejjer mentions the monks in Madjan.
Al-Ḳazwîni, ʻAǧa’ib (Wüstenfeld), Vol. 2, p. 173, calls the town of Madjan the trade center for Tebûk between al-Medîna and Syria. It contained a well from which Moses watered Šuʻejb’s sheep. He was told that this well had been covered and a house built above it, to which the pilgrims used to go.—According to this report it appears that the trade caravans proceed along the road by the sea, and the inhabitants of the town of Tebûk obtained their supplies in Madjan, situated on the second highroad mentioned by al-Idrîsi (loc. cit.).
Aḥmed al-Maḳrîzi made two pilgrimages to Mecca and thus visited Madjan. In the work entitled al-Mawâʻiẓ (Codex Vindobonensis, No. 908 [A. F. 69], Vol. 1, fol. 10 v., 36 v., 134 v.; Wiet’s edit., Vol. 1, p. 311) he includes in the Egyptian province of al-Ḳible the following districts of the Ḥeǧâz: aṭ-Ṭûr, Fârân, Ajla, Madjan, al-ʻUwajnid, al-Ḥawra, Bada’, and Šaṛab. According to him the settlement of Madjan is situated by the Gulf of Ḳolzum, five days’ march from Ajla. It affords its inhabitants only a modest livelihood, and trade does not prosper. Various strange memorials and huge buildings were exhibited there.—
It is interesting that even the districts of aṭ-Ṭûr and Fârân, though situated on the peninsula of Sinai, are here officially reckoned with the Ḥeǧâz. Fârân is identical with the town of Târân referred to on page 61 of Wiet’s edition; Târân is here an error, the correct spelling being Medîne Fârân, inasmuch as the island of Târân is out of the question. In the Codex Vindobonensis, fol. 10 v., occurs a passage to the effect that the town of Fârân is situated between the towns of al-Ḳolzum and Ajla. Equally incorrect is the spelling in Wiet’s edition al-ʻAwnîd for al-ʻUwajnid, as is shown by a note in the manuscript L 3 (in the library of the University of Leiden, sig. 828; see note 21 in Wiet’s edition, Vol. 1, p. 311) where the first consonant is provided with the vowel u, indicating a diminutive; furthermore, the natives say al-ʻUwejned or ʻWejned.
At the beginning of the fifteenth century, therefore, the once renowned town of Madian survived merely as a wretched settlement. The huge buildings which al-Maḳrîzi mentions are perhaps the Nabataean burial places cut out from the surrounding rocks.
Ḥaǧǧi Ḫalfa, Ǧihân numa’ (Constantinople, 1145 A. H.), p. 525, describes Madjan as ruined town on the shore, situated six days’ march to the west of Tebûk. Not far away the people exhibited a rock from which water gushed forth at the command of Moses. Many eṯel and muḳl trees grew there, together with date palms. In the valley there were ruined walls and also stone slabs, upon which were cut the names of various kings.—
The statement about the rock from which water gushed forth at the command of Moses is of late origin, for in the earlier centuries this rock had been exhibited near Petra. The boulder in question is situated to the west of the burial place, but no water flows from it or near it. The stone slabs with the inscriptions on them referred to by Ḥaǧǧi Ḫalfa