The Quran tells of the prophet Lot's people and their cities in several suras. Hud 11:82 says that when the command came, the town was turned upside down and stones of baked clay rained upon it. The cities are not named; an-Najm 53:53 calls them "al-mu'tafikah", "the overturned".
Al-Hijr 15:76 and as-Saffat 37:137 note that their remains lie on a road still in use and that the audience passed by them morning and evening. These statements, together with the biblical tradition, support the view that the cities lay around the Dead Sea.
Their exact location is unknown: archaeologists have proposed sites such as Bab edh-Dhra, south-east of the Dead Sea, and Tall el-Hammam, north-east of it; these proposals are themselves debated.