۞ And remember (Hud) the brother of 'Ad, when he warned his people in Al-Ahqaf (the curved sand-hills in the southern part of Arabian Peninsula). And surely, there have passed away warners before him and after him (saying): "Worship none but Allah; truly, I fear for you the torment of a mighty Day." 21 They said: Have you come to us to turn us away from our gods; then bring us what you threaten us with, if you are of the truthful ones. 22 He said: "The Knowledge (of when it will come) is only with Allah: I proclaim to you the mission on which I have been sent: But I see that ye are a people in ignorance!".. 23 So when they saw it as a cloud appearing in the sky advancing towards their valleys, they said: This is a cloud which will give us rain. Nay! it is what you sought to hasten on, a blast of wind in which is a painful punishment, 24 Destroying everything by the Command of its Lord! So they became such that nothing could be seen except their dwellings! Thus do We recompense the people who are Mujrimun (polytheists, disbelievers, sinners, etc.)! 25 And yet, We had established them securely in a manner in which We have never established you, [O people of later times;] and We had endowed them with hearing, and sight, and [knowledgeable] hearts: but neither their hearing, nor their sight, nor their hearts were of the least avail to them, seeing that they went on rejecting God's messages; and [in the end] they were overwhelmed by the very thing which they had been wont to deride. 26