۞ And remember the brother of Ad, when he warned his people beside the sand-dunes -- and already warners had passed away alike before him and behind him -- saying, 'Serve none but God! Truly I fear for you the chastisement of a dreadful 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 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 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 verily We had empowered them with that wherewith We have not empowered you, and had assigned them ears and eyes and hearts; but their ears and eyes and hearts availed them naught since they denied the revelations of Allah; and what they used to mock befell them. 26