۞ (Muhammad), recall the brother of the people of Ad, when he warned his people in the valley of al-ahqaf saying, "There existed many warners before and after him. Do not worship anything other than God. I am afraid for you about the torment of the great Day". 21 They said: “Have you come to us to turn us away from our gods? Then, bring upon us the scourge that you threaten us with. Do so if you are truthful.” 22 He said, "God alone knows when it will come, and I deliver to you the message with which I am sent, but I see you are a people who are ignorant." 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 destroying everything by the commandment of its Lord.' So in the morning there was naught to be seen but their dwelling-places. Even so do We recompense the people of the sinners. 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