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In Uncharted 3, after Nathan Drake’s travels through the dunes of the Rub’ al Khali reduce him to delirium, he’s saved by Salim, a sheik of a Bedouin tribe. It’s another mysterious city lost to the desert mentioned in a One Thousand and One Nights tale that alludes to the Quran.Ĭrucial to the plot of the video game, the surah Saba’ discusses King Solomon commanding jinn, which “The City of Brass” expands on: “We have heard from those who were before us that God (whose perfection be extolled, and whose name be exalted!) bestowed not upon any one the like of that which He bestowed upon our lord Suleyman, and that he attained to that to which none other attained, so that he used to imprison the Jinn and the Marids and the Devils in bottles of brass, and pour molten lead over them, and seal this cover over them with a signet.” The City of Brass doesn’t really fall into the same category as Iram and Ubar, but Uncharted 3’s entire “Atlantis of the Sands” segment is based on it anyway. “The four streams meeting together in a great tank lined with marbles of various colours.” Naughty Dog While other scholars disputed Ubar’s connection to Iram, Ubar was clearly a crucial stop on ancient frankincense trade routes. A 1992 article in the Los Angeles Times reveals that researchers consider Iram and Ubar to be the same city because of parallels in their location and history.
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In the early ‘90s, European and American explorers used NASA’s radar imaging to find the 5,000-year-old city of Ubar in Oman. Since then it has been inhabited by jinn who endeavour to prevent approach to it and destroy those who reach it.” His book continues: “It was a great city in a fertile oasis belonging to the tribe of Ad, and its inhabitants were punished for their sins. (These supernatural creatures featured in Islamic mythology are referred to as “Djinn” in Uncharted 3, but it’s clearly the same thing). Although, according to the locals Thomas spoke with, anyone who found it would be opposed by fearsome jinn. Western imaginations were piqued by Thomas’ writing, and people have been searching for Ubar ever since. It’s easy to draw a line between those words and the treasure hunting adventures in Uncharted 3, but the story of Drake’s Deception pulls from more than one mythical Middle Eastern city. And the door leaves in the pavilions were like those of the castle for beauty, and their floors were strewn with great pearls and balls, no smaller than hazelnuts, of musk and ambergris and saffron." "And therein were lofty palaces laid out in pavilions all built of gold and silver and inlaid with many colored jewels and jacinths and chrysolites and pearls. He eventually learns that he’s in the luxurious city of the ‘Ad, once ruled by King Shaddad ibn ‘Ad, before it was destroyed by God to serve as a warning of the empty vanity of earthly treasures. In the story, a man named Abdullah bin Abi Kilabah loses his camel and stumbles upon an empty city in the desert while searching for it. One of these stories, “ The City of Many Columned Iram and Abdullah Son of Abi Kilabah,” portrays Iram as an extravagant city in Al-Yaman, known today as Yemen. The Quran’s depiction of Iram also inspired One Thousand and One Nights, a centuries-old collection of folktales from the Middle East, North Africa, and parts of Asia. They were pursued by a curse in this world as they will on the Day of Resurrection.”
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Those who denied Hud’s call to repent and throw themselves upon God’s mercy were punished: "Such were the 'Ad who denied the signs of their Lord and disobeyed His messengers and followed the order of every stubborn tyrant. Later, in the Hud surah, the prophet Hud meets with the people of the Iram tribe to warn them their arrogant monuments to their own prestige are nothing compared to God’s power. Iram is first mentioned in the Al-Fajr surah (chapter) of the Quran as an example of how God punishes those who refuse to abandon their corrupt beliefs: “Have you considered how your Lord dealt with the people of 'Ad, of Iram, the city of lofty pillars, whose like has never been made in any land, and the Thamud, who hewed into the rocks in the valley, and the mighty and powerful Pharaoh? All of them committed excesses in their lands, and spread corruption there: your Lord let a scourge of punishment loose on them.
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Nathan Drake looks out over the “Atlantis of the Sands.” Naughty Dog