۞ And mention, [O Muhammad], the brother of 'Aad, when he warned his people in the [region of] al-Ahqaf - and warners had already passed on before him and after him - [saying], "Do not worship except Allah. Indeed, I fear for you the punishment of a terrible day." 21 They said, 'What, hast thou come to pervert us from our gods? Then bring us that thou promisest us, if indeed thou speakest truly.' 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 Then, when they saw it as a sudden cloud coming towards their valleys, they said, 'This is a cloud, that shall give us rain!' 'Not so; rather it is that you sought to hasten -- a wind, wherein is a painful chastisement, 24 It will destroy everything by the will of its Lord" (Not very long after) nothing could be seen of them except their dwellings. Thus do We recompense the sinful people. 25 We had empowered them to an extent which We have not empowered you, [O people of later times]; and We had endowed them with hearing, and sight, and hearts: but neither their hearing, nor their sight, nor their hearts were of the least avail to them, since they went on rejecting God's revelations; and they were overwhelmed by the very thing which they had been wont to deride. 26