۞ 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: Hast come to turn us away from our gods? Then bring upon us that wherewith thou threatenest us, if thou art 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 So when they saw the punishment coming towards their valleys, spread like a cloud on the horizon, they said, “That is a cloud which will shower rain upon us”; said Hud “In fact this is what you were being impatient for; a windstorm carrying a painful punishment.” 24 Destroying everything by the command of its Lord, so they became such that naught could be seen except their dwellings. Thus do We reward the guilty 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