۞ وَٱذْكُرْ أَخَا عَادٍ إِذْ أَنذَرَ قَوْمَهُۥ بِٱلْأَحْقَافِ وَقَدْ خَلَتِ ٱلنُّذُرُ مِنۢ بَيْنِ يَدَيْهِ وَمِنْ خَلْفِهِۦٓ أَلَّا تَعْبُدُوٓا۟ إِلَّا ٱللَّهَ إِنِّىٓ أَخَافُ عَلَيْكُمْ عَذَابَ يَوْمٍ عَظِيمٍۢ
And mention [Hud] the brother of ‘Ad, when he warned his people at Ahqaf—and warners have passed away before and after him—saying, ‘Do not worship anyone but Allah. Indeed I fear for you the punishment of a tremendous day.’
قَالُوٓا۟ أَجِئْتَنَا لِتَأْفِكَنَا عَنْ ءَالِهَتِنَا فَأْتِنَا بِمَا تَعِدُنَآ إِن كُنتَ مِنَ ٱلصَّٰدِقِينَ
They said, ‘Have you come to turn us away from our gods? Then bring us what you threaten us with, if you are truthful.
قَالَ إِنَّمَا ٱلْعِلْمُ عِندَ ٱللَّهِ وَأُبَلِّغُكُم مَّآ أُرْسِلْتُ بِهِۦ وَلَٰكِنِّىٓ أَرَىٰكُمْ قَوْمًۭا تَجْهَلُونَ
He said, ‘The knowledge [of when that threat will be carried out] is with Allah alone. I communicate to you what I have been sent with. But I see that you are a senseless lot.’
فَلَمَّا رَأَوْهُ عَارِضًۭا مُّسْتَقْبِلَ أَوْدِيَتِهِمْ قَالُوا۟ هَٰذَا عَارِضٌۭ مُّمْطِرُنَا ۚ بَلْ هُوَ مَا ٱسْتَعْجَلْتُم بِهِۦ ۖ رِيحٌۭ فِيهَا عَذَابٌ أَلِيمٌۭ
When they saw it as a cloud advancing toward their valleys, they said, ‘This cloud brings us rain.’ ‘No, it is what you sought to hasten: a hurricane carrying a painful punishment,
تُدَمِّرُ كُلَّ شَىْءٍۭ بِأَمْرِ رَبِّهَا فَأَصْبَحُوا۟ لَا يُرَىٰٓ إِلَّا مَسَٰكِنُهُمْ ۚ كَذَٰلِكَ نَجْزِى ٱلْقَوْمَ ٱلْمُجْرِمِينَ
destroying everything by its Lord’s command.’ So they became such that nothing could be seen except their dwellings. Thus do We requite the guilty lot.
وَلَقَدْ مَكَّنَّٰهُمْ فِيمَآ إِن مَّكَّنَّٰكُمْ فِيهِ وَجَعَلْنَا لَهُمْ سَمْعًۭا وَأَبْصَٰرًۭا وَأَفْـِٔدَةًۭ فَمَآ أَغْنَىٰ عَنْهُمْ سَمْعُهُمْ وَلَآ أَبْصَٰرُهُمْ وَلَآ أَفْـِٔدَتُهُم مِّن شَىْءٍ إِذْ كَانُوا۟ يَجْحَدُونَ بِـَٔايَٰتِ ٱللَّهِ وَحَاقَ بِهِم مَّا كَانُوا۟ بِهِۦ يَسْتَهْزِءُونَ
Certainly We had granted them power in respects that We have not granted you, and We had vested them with hearing and sight and hearts. But neither their hearing availed them in any way nor did their sight, nor their hearts when they used to impugn the signs of Allah. So they were besieged by what they used to deride.
وَلَقَدْ أَهْلَكْنَا مَا حَوْلَكُم مِّنَ ٱلْقُرَىٰ وَصَرَّفْنَا ٱلْءَايَٰتِ لَعَلَّهُمْ يَرْجِعُونَ
Certainly We have destroyed the towns that were around you, and We have variously paraphrased the signs so that they may come back.
فَلَوْلَا نَصَرَهُمُ ٱلَّذِينَ ٱتَّخَذُوا۟ مِن دُونِ ٱللَّهِ قُرْبَانًا ءَالِهَةًۢ ۖ بَلْ ضَلُّوا۟ عَنْهُمْ ۚ وَذَٰلِكَ إِفْكُهُمْ وَمَا كَانُوا۟ يَفْتَرُونَ
So why did not those [fake deities] help them whom they had taken as gods besides Allah, as a means of nearness [to Him]? Indeed, they forsook them; that was their lie and what they used to fabricate.
English translation: Ali Quli Qarai
Here the sura turns to its first cautionary story. Hud, the brother of ʿĀd, warns his people at al-Ahqaf to worship God alone (v.21); they demand the threatened punishment (v.22); he answers that its timing rests with God (v.23); they mistake the approaching cloud for rain, but it is a wind bearing a painful punishment, destroying everything (vv.24-25); and God reminds the Meccans that ʿĀd were mightier than they, yet their faculties and false gods availed nothing (vv.26-28).
The setting and the name. Al-Tabarsi and al-Tusi define al-aḥqāf as great curving sand-dunes and survey the geographical reports — a valley or sands between Oman and Mahra / Hadramawt, or overlooking the sea in Yemen. Both read verse 23 as Hud disclaiming knowledge of the punishment's timing (the knowledge is only with God) while affirming his duty to convey. Al-Tabarsi supplies the vivid detail (from ʿAmr b. Maymun) that the wind bore the people aloft so a howdah looked like a locust, while Hud and the believers, sheltered, felt only its pleasant touch — a picture al-Tusi shares.
The drought and the cloud. Al-Qummi and al-Bahrani (from ʿAli b. Ibrahim) add the narrative frame: ʿĀd's land was fertile until God withheld rain for seven years; Hud kept calling them (as in Surah Hud) to repentance in vain; then the promised wind came disguised as a rain-cloud. Both gloss destroying everything as general in wording but particular in effect — it annihilated all that was theirs while sparing much else. Al-Tabatabai reads the same, and takes verse 28's taunt about the helpless gods of nearness as sarcasm exposing the emptiness of intercessory idolatry.
The petrified remnant. A striking pair of narrations in al-Qummi and al-Bahrani attaches to verse 21: when diggers under al-Mutawakkil (and, in al-Bahrani's Ihtijaj parallel, under al-Mahdi) broke into a deadly cold wind and stone-turned bodies, Imam al-Hadi and Musa b. Jaʿfar identified the site as al-Ahqaf, 'the remnant of ʿĀd whom God destroyed by the shrieking wind' — reported here as attributed. Al-Qummi and al-Bahrani both underline the moral drawn by the Qurʾan itself (vv.26-27): these ruins around Mecca are a warning to the community of Muhammad. The Enlightening Commentary narrates the destruction in full — the three clouds, the seven-day gale, the burial beneath the dunes — and reads verse 26 as a direct warning to Quraysh, who were weaker than the ʿĀd yet no less heedless.