Quran 89:6–8 refers to the people of ‘Ad and the city of Iram:

“Have you not considered how your Lord dealt with ‘Ad — Iram of the lofty pillars, the like of which had never been created in the land?”

In the 1990s a team of archaeologists working in Oman excavated a site that some popular writers identified with the legendary city of Ubar (sometimes equated with Iram). Modern Muslim apologists quickly presented the discovery as confirmation of the Quranic account and therefore as a scientific or historical miracle.

A careful review of the archaeological evidence, classical Islamic interpretation, and the Quranic description itself shows that the identification is far from established.

1. Height of the Structures

The excavated towers stand approximately 30 feet (about 9 metres) high. Numerous ancient structures elsewhere in the world—Egyptian obelisks, Mesopotamian ziggurats, Roman columns, and others—exceed this height by a wide margin. The Quranic phrase “the like of which had never been created in the land” implies uniqueness of scale. The Omani towers do not meet that criterion.

Moreover, the structures are towers rather than the architectural pillars (ʿimād) normally used to support buildings. Classical Arabic usage of ʿimād in both the Quran and hadith literature more naturally refers to supporting columns or, figuratively, to tall stature.

2. Classical Interpretation: Tall People, Not Pillars

Early Muslim commentators frequently understood dhāt al-ʿimād as a reference to the exceptional height of the people of ‘Ad themselves rather than to architectural features. Abu ‘Ubayda, Ibn Abbas, Mujahid, and others explained the phrase as denoting tall stature. This reading aligns more consistently with other Quranic and hadith descriptions of the ‘Ad as a people of extraordinary physical size.

3. Chronological Problems

The excavated fortress dates to roughly 2,000 years ago and appears to have collapsed between approximately 300 and 500 CE. Islamic tradition maintains that no prophet was sent between Jesus and Muhammad—a gap of about 600 years. If the destruction of ‘Ad occurred only 100–300 years before Muhammad, it would fall inside the period when, according to mainstream Islamic belief, no prophetic warning should have been issued.

4. Manner of Destruction

The Quran repeatedly states that the people of ‘Ad were destroyed by a violent wind (41:16, 46:24, 51:41, 54:19, 69:6). Geological examination of the Omani site indicates that the fortress collapsed into a sinkhole caused by the depletion of groundwater, not by a sandstorm or windstorm.

5. Scale of Construction

Quran 26:128 criticises the ‘Ad for building monuments “on every height.” The excavated site is a relatively small fortified settlement. No evidence of widespread construction across multiple hills matching the Quranic description has been found in the vicinity.

6. The Ebla Tablets Connection

Some apologists cite the Ebla tablets (c. 2500–2300 BCE) as mentioning a place called Iram or Ubar. The tablets are more than a millennium older than the Omani fortress. Early sensational claims linking Ebla to biblical or Quranic place-names were later largely retracted by specialists; the present scholarly consensus regards those connections as unsubstantiated. No published tablet provides a clear reference to a city of lofty pillars belonging to the people of ‘Ad.

Pre-Islamic Background

References to Iram and ‘Ad already appear in pre-Islamic Arabic poetry and in Jewish and Arabian folklore circulating in the Hijaz. The Quranic allusions draw on this existing legendary material rather than introducing previously unknown historical data.

Conclusion

The Omani excavation is an interesting archaeological site, but the evidence does not establish that it is the Iram of the Quran. The structures are neither uniquely tall nor pillars in the architectural sense; the destruction mechanism does not match the Quranic windstorm; the chronology conflicts with the traditional prophetic timeline; and the site’s limited scale does not satisfy the description of building on every height. The identification remains speculative. Presenting it as a confirmed Quranic miracle overstates the archaeological and textual data.