Note [édition originale] : Adorned with lofty buildings;]
Or
pillars. Some imagine these words are used to express the great
size and strength of the old
Adites
2;
and then they should be translated,
who
were of enormous stature. But the more exact commentators take the passage to
relate to the sumptuous palace and delightful gardens built and made by
Sheddâd the son of
Ad.
For they say
Ad left two sons,
Sheddâd and
Sheddîd,
who reigned jointly after his decease, and extended their power over the
greater part of the world; but
Sheddîd dying, his brother became sole monarch;
who, having heard of the
celestial paradise, made a garden in imitation
thereof, in the deserts of
Aden, and called it
Irem, after the name of his
great-grandfather: when it was finished he set out, with a great attendance,
to take a view of it; but when they were come within a day’s journey of the
place, they were all destroyed by a terrible noise from heaven.
Al Beidawi
adds that one
Abdallah Ebn Kelâbah (whom, after
D’Herbelot, I have elsewhere
named
Colabah
3) accidentally hit on this wonderful place, as he was seeking a
camel.
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2
Iidem. See Prelim. Disc. p. 7.
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3
Prelim. Disc. p. 6.