22 August 2025
“I had the privilege of staying at the American Center of Research during the months of May, June, and July of 2025 and conducting research on depictions of Midian/Madyan in the Hebrew Bible and the Qur’an. Historically, Midian/Madyan is believed to have been located in the northwestern Arabian Peninsula, with its northernmost boundaries around Jordan’s Gulf of Aqaba and its capital in Saudi Arabia’s Tabuk region. In the Hebrew Bible, Midian represents the place where the Prophet Moses is said to have escaped and settled, as well as where the Israelites lived between their exodus from Egypt and arrival in Canaan. The Hebrew Bible is so rich with allusions to God and Midian that since the nineteenth century, a school of biblicists have argued that the Israelites first adopted their conception of their deity from a people who lived there, in what has become known as the Midianite-Kenite Hypothesis.”