THE "MEN OF THE TANGLEWOOD"

IN THE QUR'AN
By A. F. L. BEESTON

Aykah according to the classical Arabic lexica means "tangled

vegetation" (al-sagar al-multaff), and is a synonym oigaydah. The
"men of the tanglewood", ashdb al-aykati, are mentioned three
times in the Qur'an (xv. 78; xxxviii. 12/13; 1. 13/14) in lists of

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ancient peoples punished by God for their impiety. In a fourth
passage (xxvi, 176ff.)we learn that the prophet sent to them was
Su'ayb, and that the main burden of his preaching was a cam-
paign against dishonesty in commercial transactions. Su'ayb was
also sent to Madyan with a virtually identical message. The
commentators do not, however, identify the "men of the tangle-
wood" with Madyan, because Su'ayb is called "brother" (i.e.
fellow tribesman) of Madyan, but not of the former people;
from which it follows that he had a double mission to two
separately identifiable peoples. The similarity of the message,
however, suggests that the "men of the tanglewood" were at all
events closely connected with Madyan, and must like Madyan
have been known to the Arabs of Muhammad's day for their
trading activities.
One of the most widely spread cults of ancient North-West
Arabia, if not even the most prevalent, was that of Dusares; he
was a vegetation deity, probably associated more particularly
with the vine, being identified by the Greeks with Dionysus.1
His name, attested for us in Aramaic form and Greek transcrip-
tion thereof, is commonly taken as representing an Arabic Dhu
1-Sara.2 It appears to have been hitherto universally assumed
that this name is a geographical one, alluding to the Sara
mountains south-east of the Dead Sea, and characterizes the
deity as the local god of that area. I suspect, however, that this
is only part of the truth.
There are other places bearing this name. Yaqut's Bulddn cites
it as the name of the reedy, lion-infested fastnesses of the lower
1
Sourdel, Les cultes du Hauratt (Paris, 19 5 2), ch. vnpassim; and in particular
p. 59, "parmi les dieux nabateens Dusares tient sans nul doute la premiere
place".
* El*, s.v.

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 THE "MEN OF THE TANGLEWOOD" IN THE QUR'AN
Euphrates;1 also as a locality in the vicinity of Mecca; and in the
mamdild form Sara'an it applies to a twin-topped hill in central
Najd in Kilab country. In connexion with the latter, which is
mentioned in a verse of 'Umayr al-Numayri speaking of "the
black places of twin Sara'", Thilo2 pertinently comments that
"black" implies "overgrown, black in contrast to the pale
vegetationless steppe". It seems likely that all the places so
named were designated thus because of their dense vegetation;
and that the name itself is closely connected with the noun sary
which was, and is to the present day among the bedouin of
North Western Arabia,* a synonym oiharqal "colocynth", and

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also applicable (see Lane) to "any kind of plant that spreads
upon the ground creeping and extending". I would suggest
therefore that the name Dhu 1-Sara. designates the deity not so
much as the god of a particular mountain (though this concept
might have been comprehended in the cult), but much more
importantly in his Dionysiac character as god of vegetation and
the vine.
It further seems possible that aykab is a dialectal synonym of
sardjsary* and that the expression ashdb al-aykati enshrines5 a
Meccan folk-memory of the ancient cult of Dusares. This cult,
although apparently having its main concentration in the
Hauran area, is epigraphically attested as far south as Medain
Salih,6 so that the Meccan traders certainly could have been in
contact with peoples retaining a tradition of this sort.
Buhl, in the article "Madyan" in El1, points out that the
mention of Madyan is confined to later suras, and that of the
ashdb al-aykati to earlier ones. From this he conjectures that
" perhaps... Shu'ayb had originally nothing to do with Madyan...
Muhammad only later combined an indigenous story of the
people of the thicket and their Shu'ayb with the Midianites of the
Old Testament". This speculation is unnecessary; one can as
easily suppose that the story, as known to the Arabs of the
1
Sara l-Furdti ndhtyatubu bihi giyadun wa-ajamun takimufiba l-usud.
1
Die Ortsnamen in der altarabischen Poesie (Wiesbaden, 1958), p. 94.
3
I am indebted for this observation to Professor F. V. Winnett of
Toronto, who made it in the course of an archaeological expedition to the
Jawf area a year or two ago.
4
Note that it is synonymous with gaydah (see above), and that giydd
are in Yaqut (cited note 1 above) characteristic of the Euphrates Sara.
5
By a brachylogy avoiding the cumbrous expression "those of the one of
4M aykab".
6
Sourdel, op. cit. pp. 59-60.

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 THE "MEN OF THE TANGLEWOOD" IN THE QUR'AN
Prophet's time, was basically the same one in both cases,1 but
that a Medinan audience was less familiar with the expression
ashdb al-aykati than was the Meccan trading community. One
could go further and hazard the suggestion that the difference in
the Quranic phraseology in the two cases reflects an awareness
on the part of the Prophet's audience that, whereas Su'ayb could
properly be called a fellow tribesman of the ethnic group
Madyan, he could not (being a prophet and therefore a worshipper
of the true God) have been a member of the ashdb al-aykati since
this denoted a religious affiliation to the Dusares cult.
1
I.e. Su'ayb's preaching was addressed to people who were at the same

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time Midianites ethnically, and worshippers of Dusares in the religious sphere.