۞ Remember (Hud) the brother of 'Ad. When he warned his people in Ahqaf -- though many a warner had come and gone before and after him: "Do not worship any one but God, for I fear the punishment of an awful day for you," 21 They said, "Have you come to turn us away from our gods? Show us that with which you threaten us if you are truthful". 22 He said: "Only God has the knowledge. I only convey to you what I have been sent with. But I see you are a foolish 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 that will destroy everything by the command of its Lord.” Thereafter nothing was left to be seen except their dwellings. Thus do We requite the wrong-doers. 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