Midian

Midianite religion

The Midianites through their apparent religio-political connection with the Moabites are thought to have worshipped a multitude of gods, including Baal-peor and the Queen of Heaven, Ashteroth. The Midianites may have worshiped Yahweh, the God whom according to the Bible Moses encountered at the burning bush at the far end of Midian's wilderness. It is uncertain, however, which deities the Midianites worshiped.

An Egyptian temple of Hathor at Timna continued to be used during the Midianite occupation of the site (terminal Late Bronze Age / Early Iron Age); the Midianites transformed the Hathor mining temple into a desert tent-shrine. In addition to the discovery of post-holes, large quantities of red and yellow decayed cloth with beads woven into it, along with numerous copper rings/wire used to suspend the curtains, were found all along walls 1 and 3 of the shrine. Beno Rothenberg, the excavator of the site, suggested that the Midianites were making offerings to Hathor, especially since a large amount of Midianite votive vessels (25%) were discovered in the shrine. However, whether Hathor or some other deity was the object of devotion during this period is difficult to ascertain. A small bronze snake with gilded head was also discovered in the naos of the Timna mining shrine, along with a hoard of metal objects that included a small bronze figurine of a bearded male god, which according to Rothenberg was Midianite in origin. Michael Homan observes that the Midianite tent-shrine at Timna is one of the closest parallels to the biblical Tabernacle.

Midianite pottery

Midianite pottery, also called Qurayyah Painted Ware (QPW), is found at numerous sites stretching from the southern Levant to NW Saudi Arabia, the Hejaz; Qurayyah in NW Saudi Arabia is thought to be its original location of manufacture. The pottery is bichrome / polychrome style and it dates as early as the 13th century B.C.; its many geometric, human, and animal motifs are painted in browns and dark reds on a pinkish-tan slip. "Midianite" pottery is found in its largest quantities at metallurgical sites in the southern Levant, especially Timna. Because of the Mycenaean motifs on Midianite pottery, some scholars including George Mendenhall, Peter Parr, and Beno Rothenberg have suggested that the Midianites were originally Sea Peoples who migrated from the Aegean region and imposed themselves on a pre-existing Semitic stratum. The question of the origin of the Midianites still remains open.

A Land or a League?

Some scholars have suggested that 'Midian' does not refer to a geographical area or a specific tribe, but to a confederation or 'league' of tribes brought together as a collective worship purposes. Paul Haupt first made this suggestion in 1909, describing Midian as a 'cultic collective' (Kultgenossenschaft) or an 'amphictyony', meaning 'an association (Bund) 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.

Later writers have questioned the identified sanctuary locations but supported the thesis of a Midianite league. George Mendenhall suggested that the Midianites were a non-Semitic confederate group, and William Dumbrell maintained the same case:

"We believe that Haupt's proposal is to be adopted, and that Midian, rather than depicting a land, is a general term for an amorphous league of the Late Bronze Age, of wide geographical range, who, after a series of reverses, the most prominent of which are recorded in Judges 6-7, largely disappeared from the historical scene...'

In the Qur’an

The people of Midian are mentioned extensively in the Arabic Qur’an. The word 'Madyan' appears 10 times in it. The people are also called ʾaṣḥabu l-ʾaykah (Arabic: أصـحـابُ الأيـكـة‎‎, "Companions of the Wood").

Surah 9 (Al-Tawbah), verse 70 says "Has not the story reached them of those before them? - The people of Nūḥ (Noah), ʿĀd and Thamūd, the people of Ibrahim (Abraham), the dwellers [literally, comrades] of Madyan (Midian) and the cities overthrown [i.e. the people to whom Lūt (Lot) preached], to them came their Messengers with clear proofs. So it was not Allah who wronged them, but they used to wrong themselves."

In Surah 7 (Al-ʾAʿrāf) Madyan is mentioned as one of several peoples who were warned by prophets to repent lest judgment fall on them. The story of Madyan is the last, coming after that of Lot preaching to his people (referring to the destruction of the Cities of the Plain). Madyan was warned by the prophet Shuʿaib to repent of using false weights and measures and lying in wait along the road. But they rejected Shuʿayb, and consequently were destroyed by a tremor (rajfa, v. 91). Abdullah Yusuf Ali in his commentary (1934) writes, "The fate of the Madyan people is described in the same terms as that of the Thamūd in verse 78 above. An earthquake seized them by night, and they were buried in their own homes, no longer to vex Allah's earth. But a supplementary detail is mentioned in [Qur'an] 26:189, 'the punishment of a day of overshadowing gloom,' which may be understood to mean a shower of ashes and cinders accompanying a volcanic eruption. Thus a day of terror drove them into their homes, and the earthquake finished them." (The volcano Hala-'l Badr is in northwestern Saudi Arabia .