۞ 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: art thou come unto us that thou mayest turn us aside from our gods? then bring thou upon us that wherewith thou threatenest us, if thou art of the truth-tellers. 22 He said, "Knowledge [of its time] is only with Allah, and I convey to you that with which I was sent; but I see you [to be] a people behaving ignorantly." 23 When they saw the torment as a cloud proceeding to their valleys, they said, "This cloud will bring us rain." He said, "No, it is the torment which you wanted to suffer immediately. It is a wind bearing and painful torment. 24 It will destroy everything by the command of its Lord' And when morning came there was nothing to be seen except their dwellings. As such We recompense sinful people. 25 And assuredly We had established them in that flourishing condition wherein We have not established you, and We had appointed for them hearing and sight and hearts; yet their hearing and sight and heart availed them not at all, they became wont to gainsay the revelations of Allah, and surrounded them that whereat they had been mocking. 26