Chapter Shamhozai to Shedad of S by Brewer's Readers Handbook

Shebdiz, the Persian Bucephalos, the favourite charger of Chosroës II. or Khosrou Parviz of Persia (590- 628).

Shedad, king of Ad, who built a most magnificent palace, and laid out a garden called “The Garden of Irem,”like “the bowers of Eden.” All men admired this palace and garden except the prophet Houd, who told the king that the foundation of his palace was not secure. And so it was, that God, to punish his pride, first sent a drought of three years’ duration, and then the Sarsar or icy wind for seven days, in which the garden was destroyed, the palace ruined and Shedad, with all his subjects, died.

It is said that the palace of Shedad or Shuddaud took 500 years in building, and when it was finished the angel of death would not allow him even to enter his garden, but struck him dead; and the rose garden of Irem was ever after invisible to the eye of man.—Southey: Thalaba the Destroyer, i. (1797).

Gardens more delightful than those of Shedad.—Beckford: Vathek, p. 130 (1784).