۞ And mention the brother of Ad; when he warned his people in the sandy plains,-- and indeed warners came before him and after him-- saying Serve none but Allah; surely I fear for you the punishment of a grievous day. 21 They said: Hast come to turn us away from our gods? Then bring upon us that wherewith thou threatenest us, if thou art of the truthful. 22 He said, 'Knowledge is only with God, and I deliver to you the Message with which I was sent; but I see you are an ignorant people.' 23 Then, when they saw it as a dense cloud coming towards their valleys, they said: "This is a cloud bringing us rain!" Nay, but it is that (torment) which you were asking to be hastened! a wind wherein is a painful torment! 24 Destroying everything by the command of its Lord, so they became such that naught could be seen except their dwellings. Thus do We reward the guilty people. 25 And yet, We had established them securely in a manner in which We have never established you, [O people of later times;] and We had endowed them with hearing, and sight, and [knowledgeable] hearts: but neither their hearing, nor their sight, nor their hearts were of the least avail to them, seeing that they went on rejecting God's messages; and [in the end] they were overwhelmed by the very thing which they had been wont to deride. 26