وَلَقَدْ أَرْسَلْنَآ إِلَىٰ ثَمُودَ أَخَاهُمْ صَٰلِحًا أَنِ ٱعْبُدُوا۟ ٱللَّهَ فَإِذَا هُمْ فَرِيقَانِ يَخْتَصِمُونَ
Certainly We sent to Thamud Salih, their brother, [with the summons:] ‘Worship Allah!’ But thereat they became two groups contending with each other.
قَالَ يَٰقَوْمِ لِمَ تَسْتَعْجِلُونَ بِٱلسَّيِّئَةِ قَبْلَ ٱلْحَسَنَةِ ۖ لَوْلَا تَسْتَغْفِرُونَ ٱللَّهَ لَعَلَّكُمْ تُرْحَمُونَ
He said, ‘O My people! Why do you press for evil sooner than for good? Why do you not plead to Allah for forgiveness so that you may receive His mercy?’
قَالُوا۟ ٱطَّيَّرْنَا بِكَ وَبِمَن مَّعَكَ ۚ قَالَ طَٰٓئِرُكُمْ عِندَ ٱللَّهِ ۖ بَلْ أَنتُمْ قَوْمٌۭ تُفْتَنُونَ
They said, ‘We take you and those who are with you for a bad omen.’ He said, ‘Your bad omens are from Allah. Indeed, you are a people being tested.’
وَكَانَ فِى ٱلْمَدِينَةِ تِسْعَةُ رَهْطٍۢ يُفْسِدُونَ فِى ٱلْأَرْضِ وَلَا يُصْلِحُونَ
There were nine persons in the city who caused corruption in the land and did not set things right.
قَالُوا۟ تَقَاسَمُوا۟ بِٱللَّهِ لَنُبَيِّتَنَّهُۥ وَأَهْلَهُۥ ثُمَّ لَنَقُولَنَّ لِوَلِيِّهِۦ مَا شَهِدْنَا مَهْلِكَ أَهْلِهِۦ وَإِنَّا لَصَٰدِقُونَ
They said, ‘Swear by Allah that we will attack him and his family by night. Then we will tell his heir that we were not present at the murder of his family and that we speak the truth.’
وَمَكَرُوا۟ مَكْرًۭا وَمَكَرْنَا مَكْرًۭا وَهُمْ لَا يَشْعُرُونَ
They devised a plot, and We [too] devised a plan, but they were not aware.
فَٱنظُرْ كَيْفَ كَانَ عَٰقِبَةُ مَكْرِهِمْ أَنَّا دَمَّرْنَٰهُمْ وَقَوْمَهُمْ أَجْمَعِينَ
So observe how was the outcome of their plotting, as We destroyed them and all their people.
فَتِلْكَ بُيُوتُهُمْ خَاوِيَةًۢ بِمَا ظَلَمُوٓا۟ ۗ إِنَّ فِى ذَٰلِكَ لَءَايَةًۭ لِّقَوْمٍۢ يَعْلَمُونَ
So there lay their houses, fallen in ruin because of their wrongdoing. There is indeed a sign in that for a people who have knowledge.
وَأَنجَيْنَا ٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُوا۟ وَكَانُوا۟ يَتَّقُونَ
And We delivered those who had faith and were Godwary.
وَلُوطًا إِذْ قَالَ لِقَوْمِهِۦٓ أَتَأْتُونَ ٱلْفَٰحِشَةَ وَأَنتُمْ تُبْصِرُونَ
[We also sent] Lot, when he said to his people, ‘What! Do you commit this indecency while you look on?
أَئِنَّكُمْ لَتَأْتُونَ ٱلرِّجَالَ شَهْوَةًۭ مِّن دُونِ ٱلنِّسَآءِ ۚ بَلْ أَنتُمْ قَوْمٌۭ تَجْهَلُونَ
Do you approach men with [sexual] desire instead of women?! Indeed, you are a senseless lot!’
۞ فَمَا كَانَ جَوَابَ قَوْمِهِۦٓ إِلَّآ أَن قَالُوٓا۟ أَخْرِجُوٓا۟ ءَالَ لُوطٍۢ مِّن قَرْيَتِكُمْ ۖ إِنَّهُمْ أُنَاسٌۭ يَتَطَهَّرُونَ
But the only answer of his people was that they said, ‘Expel Lot’s family from your town! They are indeed a puritanical lot.’
فَأَنجَيْنَٰهُ وَأَهْلَهُۥٓ إِلَّا ٱمْرَأَتَهُۥ قَدَّرْنَٰهَا مِنَ ٱلْغَٰبِرِينَ
So We delivered him and his family, except his wife. We ordained her to be among those who remained behind.
وَأَمْطَرْنَا عَلَيْهِم مَّطَرًۭا ۖ فَسَآءَ مَطَرُ ٱلْمُنذَرِينَ
Then We poured down upon them a rain [of stones]. Evil was that rain for those who had been warned!
English translation: Ali Quli Qarai
Triangulated from: enlightening_commentary, tabatabai_al_mizan, tabarsi_majma_al_bayan, tusi_al_tibyan, bahrani_al_burhan (narration), and qummi. All six sources are present; none is silent.
The passage gives two paired warning-narratives. Ṣāliḥ and Thamūd (45–53): his people split into two disputing parties; his rebuke why do you hasten the evil before the good?; their ill-auguring (we augur ill of you) answered with your omen is with God; the nine ringleaders who swear a night-attack on Ṣāliḥ and a cover-up (we did not witness the destruction of his family); God's counter-plot and their destruction; and the empty houses left because they did wrong. Then Lot (54–58): his rebuke of the fāḥisha done while you see, his people's mocking demand to expel people who keep themselves pure, and their destruction by a rain of stones, Lot's wife among those who remained.
The two parties. al-Ṭabāṭabāʾī [tabatabai_al_mizan] anchors farīqāni yakhtaṣimūn to the parallel in al-Aʿrāf [7:75–76], reading the split as the arrogant against the oppressed believers. Tafsīr al-Qummī [qummi] and al-Baḥrānī [bahrani_al_burhan] carry the same Abū l-Jārūd narration dramatizing the exchange (Do you testify that Ṣāliḥ is sent…?) and adding the vivid detail that the she-camel's hamstringer was blue-eyed, red, born of fornication.
The omen. All four Arabic sources gloss ṭāʾirukum ʿinda llāh as the ill they augured being in truth from God, by their unbelief; al-Ṭabarsī [tabarsi_majma_al_bayan] and al-Ṭūsī [tusi_al_tibyan] cite the parallel of Moses [7:131], while al-Ṭabāṭabāʾī develops the Qurʾānic sense of ṭāʾir as one's fastened book of deeds [17:13].
The nine and their plot. al-Ṭabarsī names the nine (from Ibn ʿAbbas) and preserves the qirāʾa dispute between la-nubayyitannahu (we will attack) and la-tubayyitunnahu (a mutual address), which al-Ṭūsī analyses grammatically at length, alongside the mahlik/mahlak/muhlak variants. On wa-makarnā makran, all agree God's 'plotting' is His just requital — the angels pelting the assassins with stones (al-Ṭabarsī, al-Ṭūsī, al-Qummī, al-Baḥrānī) while the Quaking took the rest.
A distinctive Imāmī gloss. Tafsīr al-Qummī reads these are their houses, fallen empty eschatologically — 'the caliphate shall not be in the house of so-and-so… nor Ṭalḥa nor al-Zubayr' — a polemical reading carried as-attributed and not shared by the other sources, which take the verse as the plain lesson that wrongdoing ruins houses (al-Ṭabarsī citing Ibn ʿAbbas to that effect).
Lot. The four Arabic sources agree the fāḥisha is sodomy and that tubṣirūn means they saw one another in the act; al-Ṭabāṭabāʾī notes the double emphatic marks the deed as beyond belief, and reads tajhalūn as persistent, incorrigible ignorance. All identify the rain as stones (al-Ṭabāṭabāʾī: of sijjīl, per 15:74), and Lot's wife as of those who remained in the punishment for sharing their crime. The published enlightening_commentary [enlightening_commentary] narrates both prophets accessibly, closing on the transition to say, Praise be to God.
Sources present: enlightening_commentary, tabatabai_al_mizan, tabarsi_majma_al_bayan, tusi_al_tibyan, bahrani_al_burhan, qummi; silent: none.