كَذَّبَتْ ثَمُودُ ٱلْمُرْسَلِينَ
[The people of] Thamud impugned the apostles
إِذْ قَالَ لَهُمْ أَخُوهُمْ صَٰلِحٌ أَلَا تَتَّقُونَ
when Salih, their brother, said to them, ‘Will you not be wary [of Allah]?
إِنِّى لَكُمْ رَسُولٌ أَمِينٌۭ
Indeed I am a trusted apostle [sent] to you.
فَٱتَّقُوا۟ ٱللَّهَ وَأَطِيعُونِ
So be wary of Allah and obey me.
وَمَآ أَسْـَٔلُكُمْ عَلَيْهِ مِنْ أَجْرٍ ۖ إِنْ أَجْرِىَ إِلَّا عَلَىٰ رَبِّ ٱلْعَٰلَمِينَ
I do not ask you any reward for it; my reward lies only with the Lord of all the worlds.
أَتُتْرَكُونَ فِى مَا هَٰهُنَآ ءَامِنِينَ
Will you be left secure in that which is here
فِى جَنَّٰتٍۢ وَعُيُونٍۢ
—amid gardens and springs,
وَزُرُوعٍۢ وَنَخْلٍۢ طَلْعُهَا هَضِيمٌۭ
farms and date palms with dainty spathes
وَتَنْحِتُونَ مِنَ ٱلْجِبَالِ بُيُوتًۭا فَٰرِهِينَ
—while you skillfully hew out houses from the mountains?
فَٱتَّقُوا۟ ٱللَّهَ وَأَطِيعُونِ
So be wary of Allah and obey me,
وَلَا تُطِيعُوٓا۟ أَمْرَ ٱلْمُسْرِفِينَ
and do not obey the dictates of the transgressors,
ٱلَّذِينَ يُفْسِدُونَ فِى ٱلْأَرْضِ وَلَا يُصْلِحُونَ
who cause corruption in the land and do not bring about reform.’
قَالُوٓا۟ إِنَّمَآ أَنتَ مِنَ ٱلْمُسَحَّرِينَ
They said, ‘Indeed you are one of the bewitched.
مَآ أَنتَ إِلَّا بَشَرٌۭ مِّثْلُنَا فَأْتِ بِـَٔايَةٍ إِن كُنتَ مِنَ ٱلصَّٰدِقِينَ
You are just a human being like us. So bring us a sign, should you be truthful.’
قَالَ هَٰذِهِۦ نَاقَةٌۭ لَّهَا شِرْبٌۭ وَلَكُمْ شِرْبُ يَوْمٍۢ مَّعْلُومٍۢ
He said, ‘This is a she-camel; she shall drink and you shall drink on known days.
وَلَا تَمَسُّوهَا بِسُوٓءٍۢ فَيَأْخُذَكُمْ عَذَابُ يَوْمٍ عَظِيمٍۢ
Do not cause her any harm, for then you shall be seized by the punishment of a terrible day.’
فَعَقَرُوهَا فَأَصْبَحُوا۟ نَٰدِمِينَ
But they hamstrung her, whereupon they became regretful.
فَأَخَذَهُمُ ٱلْعَذَابُ ۗ إِنَّ فِى ذَٰلِكَ لَءَايَةًۭ ۖ وَمَا كَانَ أَكْثَرُهُم مُّؤْمِنِينَ
So the punishment seized them. There is indeed a sign in that; but most of them do not have faith.
وَإِنَّ رَبَّكَ لَهُوَ ٱلْعَزِيزُ ٱلرَّحِيمُ
Indeed your Lord is the All-mighty, the All-merciful.
English translation: Ali Quli Qarai
Ṣāliḥ's pericope repeats the messenger-frame, and the sources pass over it quickly, but the story's distinctive substance draws careful comment. Its keynote is the rebuke will you be left secure in what is here? — al-Mīzān reads it as the false security of a people "unbridled, unquestioned, safe" amid their favours, which "will not last" (Ṭabarsī). The enumerated blessings — gardens and springs, and crops and palm-trees whose spathe is haḍīm — occasion a philological survey on which Ṭabarsī and Ṭūsī assemble a full range of glosses for haḍīm (ripe, soft, packed, crumbling, stoneless), while al-Mīzān notes the palm is singled out "for their care of it." On and you hew houses from the mountains, fārihīn, all four Arabic sources register the two readings — "skilfully" (which counts the hewing among the favours) or "insolently" (which rebukes their arrogance); al-Qummī and al-Baḥrānī (from al-Bāqir) preserve both, al-Baḥrānī adding the gloss of musaḥḥarīn as "hollow, like the make of man."
"Do not obey the command of the extravagant" (150–152). This is where al-Mīzān expands most strikingly. Identifying the musrifīn as the followed chiefs — for Ṭūsī, "the nine men of Thamūd who hamstrung the she-camel" — Ṭabāṭabāʾī takes the clause who spread corruption in the earth and do not set it right as "the real ground of the ruling" and builds from it a cosmic argument: the universe is composed toward a single balanced end "like the two pans of a scale," and a part that "swerves from its appointed path and corrupts the order" is either righted by the rest or annihilated to preserve the whole. From this he draws that "the true reality of the prophetic call is the setting-right (iṣlāḥ) of earthly human life" (citing Shuʿayb, 11:88), and that this plainly-worded prohibition "rests on a demonstrative proof."
The sign and the she-camel (153–159). Thamūd's demand — you are only one of the bewitched… bring a sign — receives the standard lexical treatment of musaḥḥar (bewitched, or a mortal "with a lung/belly"), all sources noting it reduces to "you are a mortal like us." Ṣāliḥ answers with this is a she-camel; hers is a share of water and yours a share — Ṭabarsī adds the tradition from ʿAlī (a) that this was "the first spring to gush on earth," and al-Baḥrānī preserves (from al-Ṣādiq) the detail that on her day the whole people drank of her milk. On the destruction, al-Mīzān draws its most quoted point: so they hamstrung her is ascribed to all "though only one did it, because they consented," citing the Nahj al-Balāgha — "God's punishment embraced them all because they all consented." Ṭūsī underscores that had they truly repented "God would not have destroyed them." The story closes, as its fellows, on most of them were not believers; your Lord is the Almighty — in retribution — the Merciful — to those who believe.