Al-Bad'

Al-Bad' is an oasis east of the Gulf of Aqaba, known to medieval Arabic geographers as Madyan. Palm groves and wells occupy the valley amid the mountains of northwestern Arabia. Above the oasis, monumental tombs cut into the rock at Mughayr Shu'ayb bear witness to the Nabataean settlement that once flourished here. Their carved facades face a landscape crossed by caravan routes between Red Sea ports and the southern Levant.

In the Nabataean and Roman periods the oasis contained public buildings, a fort and a substantial settlement surrounded by burial grounds. Later Islamic occupation left traces in the valley, and medieval geographers continued to describe Madyan. Its name recalled the land associated in religious tradition with the prophet Shu'ayb, while the ancient tombs remained visible in the sandstone cliffs above its cultivated ground.