۞ And remember the fellowman of the tribe of A’ad; when he warned his nation in the Ahqaf* – and indeed Heralds of warning passed away before and after him – that, “Do not worship anyone except Allah; indeed I fear the punishment of a Great Day upon you. (* A country among sand dunes.) 21 They said: art thou come unto us that thou mayest turn us aside from our gods? then bring thou upon us that wherewith thou threatenest us, if thou art of the truth-tellers. 22 He said: "The knowledge (of the time of its coming) is with Allah only, and I convey to you that wherewith I have been sent, but I see that you are a people given to ignorance!" 23 And when they saw it as a cloud approaching their valleys, they said, "This is a cloud bringing us rain!" Rather, it is that for which you were impatient: a wind, within it a painful punishment, 24 Destroying everything by command of its Lord. And they became so that nothing was seen [of them] except their dwellings. Thus do We recompense the criminal 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