۞ 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, "Have you come to delude us away from our gods? Then bring us what you promise us, if you should be of the truthful." 22 He replied: “Allah alone knows about this. I only convey to you the Message that I have been sent with. But I see that you are an ignorant people.” 23 And so, when they beheld it in the shape of a dense cloud approaching their valleys, they exclaimed, "This is but a heavy cloud which will bring us [welcome] rain!" [But Hud said:] "Nay, but it is the very thing which you [so contemptuously] sought to hasten - a wind bearing grievous suffering, 24 “That destroys all things by the command of its Lord” – so at morning none could be seen except their empty houses; this is the sort of punishment We mete out to the guilty. 25 And We had firmly established them in a (prosperity and) power which We have not given to you (ye Quraish!) and We had endowed them with (faculties of) hearing, seeing, heart and intellect: but of no profit to them were their (faculties of) hearing, sight, and heart and intellect, when they went on rejecting the Signs of Allah; and they were (completely) encircled by that which they used to mock at! 26