Madain Saleh is a pre-Islamic archaeological site located in the Al-Ula sector, within the Al Madinah Region of Saudi Arabia. The Quran tell of an earlier settlement of the area by the tribe of Thamud in the 3rd millennium BC.
According to the Islamic text, Allah punished the Thamudis for their persistent practice of idol worship and for conspiring to kill the prophet whom He sent, the non-believers being struck by an earthquake and lightning blasts. Thus, the site has earned a superstitious reputation down to contemporary times as a cursed place.
In 2008, for its well-preserved remains from late antiquity, especially the 131 rock-cut monumental tombs, with their elaborately ornamented façades, of the Nabatean kingdom, UNESCO proclaimed Madain Saleh as a site of patrimony, becoming Saudi Arabia's first World Heritage Site.
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