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| 21. And remember the brother of Ad, when he warned his people among the sand-hills - and warners there have been before him and after him - saying, `Worship none but ALLAH. I fear for you the punishment of a great day.' 22. They said, `Hast thou come to us to turn us away from our gods ? Bring us then that with which thou dost threaten us, if, indeed, thou art of the truthful.' 23. He said, `The knowledge thereof is only with ALLAH. And I convey to you what I have been sent with, but I see that you are a very ignorant people.' 24. Then, when they saw the punishment coming towards their valleys in the form of a cloud, they said, `This is a cloud which will give us rain.' We said, `Nay, but it is that which you sought to hasten - a wind wherein is a grievous punishment; 25. `It will destroy everything by the command of its Lord.' By morning there was nothing to be seen, except their dwellings. Thus do WE requite the guilty people. 26. And WE had established them in that wherein WE have not established you; and WE gave them ears and eyes and hearts. But their ears and their eyes and their hearts availed them naught, since they denied the Signs of ALLAH; and that at which they used to mock encompassed them. 27. And, certainly, WE destroyed townships round about you and WE have explained Our Signs in various ways, that they might turn to Us. 28. Why, then, did not those help them whom they had taken for gods beside ALLAH that they might bring them near to Him ? Nay, they were lost to them. That was the consequence of their lie, and of what they fabricated. |
