۞ And remember the fellowman of the tribe of A’ad; when he warned his nation in the Ahqaf* – and indeed Heralds of warning passed away before and after him – that, “Do not worship anyone except Allah; indeed I fear the punishment of a Great Day upon you. (* A country among sand dunes.) 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 (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 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 destroys all things by the command of its Lord” – so at morning none could be seen except their empty houses; this is the sort of punishment We mete out to the guilty. 25 And We had firmly established them in a (prosperity and) power which We have not given to you (ye Quraish!) and We had endowed them with (faculties of) hearing, seeing, heart and intellect: but of no profit to them were their (faculties of) hearing, sight, and heart and intellect, when they went on rejecting the Signs of Allah; and they were (completely) encircled by that which they used to mock at! 26