۞ And remember (Hud) the brother of 'Ad, when he warned his people in Al-Ahqaf (the curved sand-hills in the southern part of Arabian Peninsula). And surely, there have passed away warners before him and after him (saying): "Worship none but Allah; truly, I fear for you the torment of a mighty Day." 21 They said: "Have you come to turn us away from our aliha (gods)? Then bring us that with which you threaten us, if you are one of the truthful!" 22 He said: The knowledge is only with Allah, and I deliver to you the message with which I am sent, but I see you are a people who are ignorant. 23 And when they saw it as a sudden cloud heading for their valley they said: 'This is a cloud that will bring us rain' 'Rather' (he replied): 'it is that which you have sought to hasten, a wind in which there is a painful punishment. 24 It shall annihilate everything by the command of its Lord. Wherefore they became such that naught could be seen save their dwellings Thus We requite a nation of the culprits. 25 We had established them firmly in a manner We have not established you. We had given them ears and eyes and hearts. But nothing availed them -- neither their ears, nor their eyes, nor their hearts, for they denied the Signs of Allah. Then what they had mocked at encompassed them. 26