Among the Arabians the first inhabitants of that country are known as the Adites, from their progenitor, who is called Ad, the grandson of Ham.  These Adites were probably the people of Atlantis or Ad-lantis.  “They are personified by a monarch to whom everything is ascribed, and to whom is assigned several centuries of life.” ("Ancient History of the East,” Lenormant and Chevallier, vol. ii., p. 295.), Ad came from the northeast.  “He married a thousand wives, had four thousand sons, and lived twelve hundred years.  His descendants multiplied considerably.  After his death his sons Shadid and Shedad reigned in succession over the Adites.  In the time of the latter the people of Ad were a thousand tribes, each composed of several thousands of men.  Great conquests are attributed to Shedad; he subdued, it is said, all Arabia and Irak.  The migration of the Canaanites, their establishment in Syria, and the Shepherd invasion of Egypt are, by many Arab writers, attributed to an expedition of Shedad.” (Ibid., p. 296.)

Shedad built a palace ornamented with superb columns, and surrounded by a magnificent garden.  It was called Irem.  “It was a paradise that Shedad had built in imitation of the celestial Paradise, of whose delights he had heard.” ("Ancient History of the East,” p. 296.) In other words, an ancient, sun-worshipping, powerful, and conquering race overran Arabia at the very dawn of history; they were the sons of Adlantis:  their king tried to create a palace and garden of Eden like that of Atlantis.

The Adites are remembered by the Arabians as a great and civilized race.  “They are depicted as men of gigantic stature; their strength was equal to their size, and they easily moved enormous blocks of stone.” (Ibid.) They were architects and builders.  They raised many monuments of their power; and hence, among the Arabs, arose the custom of calling great ruins “buildings of the Adites.”  To this day the Arabs say “as old as Ad.”  In the Koran allusion is made to the edifices they built on “high places for vain uses;” expressions proving that their “idolatry was considered to have been tainted with Sabaeism or star-worship.” (Ibid.) “In these legends,” says Lenormant, “we find traces of a wealthy nation, constructors of great buildings, with an advanced civilization, analogous to that of Chaldea, professing a religion similar to the Babylonian; a nation, in short, with whom material progress was allied to great moral depravity and obscene rites.  These facts must be true and strictly historical, for they are everywhere met with among the Cushites, as among the Canaanites, their brothers by origin.”

Nor is there wanting a great catastrophe which destroys the whole Adite nation, except a very few who escape because they had renounced idolatry.  A black cloud assails their country, from which proceeds a terrible hurricane (the water-spout?) which sweeps away everything.