۞ 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 'Have you come to turn us away from our gods (they replied)? If what you say is true then bring down that which you promise us' 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 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 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