۞ AND REMEMBER that brother of [the tribe of] Ad, how - seeing that [other] warnings had already come and gone within his own knowledge as well as in times beyond his ken - he warned his people [who lived] among those sand-dunes: "Worship none but God! Verily, I fear lest suffering befall you on an awesome day!" 21 They said: "Have you come to turn us away from our gods? Then bring upon us what you predict for us, if you are a man of truth." 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 beheld it as an overpeering cloud tending toward their valleys they said: yonder is an overpeering cloud bringing us rain. Nay it is that which ye sought to be hastened: a wind wherein is a torment afflictive. 24 which will destroy everything at its Lord's behest!" And in the morning there was nothing left to be seen save their [empty] dwellings: thus We repay the evil-doers. 25 And We had certainly established them in such as We have not established you, and We made for them hearing and vision and hearts. But their hearing and vision and hearts availed them not from anything [of the punishment] when they were [continually] rejecting the signs of Allah; and they were enveloped by what they used to ridicule. 26