Understand
A Nabataean city hewed out of rock in the same style as Jordan's far more famous Petra, Madain Saleh is on UNESCO's tentative list for World Heritage inclusion (http://whc.unesco.org/en/...) and would be a top tourist draw in any other country than Saudi Arabia. As it is, though, access to the site is fairly difficult and many Muslims refuse to enter the area due to a section in the Qur'an Al-Hijr 15:80 often interpreted as a curse against it.
