۞ AND REMEMBER that brother of [the tribe of] Ad, how - seeing that [other] warnings had already come and gone within his own knowledge as well as in times beyond his ken - he warned his people [who lived] among those sand-dunes: "Worship none but God! Verily, I fear lest suffering befall you on an awesome day!" 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, "Only God has the knowledge (of the coming of such torment). I preach to you the message that I have brought, but I can see that you are an ignorant people". 23 And so, when they beheld it in the shape of a dense cloud approaching their valleys, they exclaimed, "This is but a heavy cloud which will bring us [welcome] rain!" [But Hud said:] "Nay, but it is the very thing which you [so contemptuously] sought to hasten - a wind bearing grievous suffering, 24 Destroying all things by commandment of its Lord. And morning found them so that naught could be seen save their dwellings. Thus do We reward the guilty folk. 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