al-Qurtubī that it was Alexandria, since it too has many columns. This has confused a group of scholars, even though the passage is among the clear, unambiguous verses. For Allah Most High says:

“Have you not seen how your Lord dealt with ‘Ād (6), Iram of the pillars (7)?” [al-Fajr 6–7]

Elsewhere, Allah Most High mentions ‘Ād, that He sent Hūd to them, and that he warned his people among the sand dunes. It is established through mass transmission that all of this took place in Yemen. Yet an interpretation like this has come to be counted among the interpretations of the verse, even though the scholars of the early generations who expressed it may have intended only to give examples: Damascus and Alexandria have pillars, illustrating the meaning of “of the pillars.” Otherwise, even the most junior student of knowledge knows that ‘Ād lived in Yemen.

This is like what is reported from Hafsa concerning the words of Allah Most High:

“And Allah sets forth the example of a town that was safe and secure, its provision coming to it abundantly from every place” [al-Nahl 112],

that it was