Midian

Midian (; Miḏyān; ; , Madiam) is a geographical region in West Asia mentioned in the Hebrew Bible and Quran. William G. Dever states that biblical Midian was in the "northwest Arabian Peninsula, on the east shore of the Gulf of Aqaba on the Red Sea", an area which contained at least 14 inhabited sites during the Late Bronze and early Iron Ages. According to the Book of Genesis, the Midianites were the descendants of Midian, who was a son of Abraham and his wife Keturah: "Abraham took a wife, and her name was Keturah. And she bare him Zimran, and Jokshan, and Medan, and Midian, and Ishbak, and Shuah" (Genesis 25:1–2, King James Version). Traditionally, knowledge about Midian and the Midianites' existence was based solely upon Biblical and classical sources, but more recently a reference to Midian has been identified in a Taymanitic inscription dated to before the 9th century BC. Land or tribal league? Some scholars have suggested that the name "Midian" does not refer to geographic places or to a specific tribe, but to a confederation or "league" of tribes brought together as a collective for worship purposes. Paul Haupt first made this suggestion in 1909, describing Midian as a "cultic collective" or an amphictyony, meaning "an association of different tribes in the vicinity of a sanctuary". Elath, on the northern tip of the Gulf of Aqaba was suggested as the location of the first shrine, with a second sanctuary located at Kadesh.