Iram is an ancient Arabian name most commonly associated in modern writing with a lost city in southeastern Arabia, the capital of the pre-Islamic people of ʿĀd, whom God destroyed for their disbelief (Cobb, 2:559; Clapp). The meaning of "Iram" has, however, undergone a complex evolution of varied and debated interpretations in both Muslim and European narratives. Pre-Islamic Nabatean epigraphy uses ʾrm as a toponym in northwestern Arabia (Savignac, 591; Macdonald, 3:76, n. 171; Hoyland, 39-40), near the modern border between Jordan and Saudi Arabia.