Appearance
Verses 50–60
The verses recount the story of the prophet Hūd and his people, the ancient nation of ʿĀd. He was the first prophet to come after Noah that God mentions in the Qurʾan, and His appreciation for Hūd’s efforts to establish the call of truth and stand up against idolatry is clear to see. The mention of Noah’s people is followed by that of Hūd’s, as God has said in several places in the Qurʾan: The people of Noah, ʿĀd, and Thamūd (e.g. ).
وَإِلَىٰ عَادٍ أَخَاهُمْ هُودًا ۚ قَالَ يَا قَوْمِ اعْبُدُوا اللَّهَ مَا لَكُمْ مِنْ إِلَٰهٍ غَيْرُهُ ۖ إِنْ أَنْتُمْ إِلَّا مُفْتَرُونَ ٥٠
(11:50) And to ʿĀd, their brother Hūd. He said, ‘O my people! Worship Allah. You have no other god besides Him: you merely fabricate.’
God describes Hūd as their brother because he was from them, and members of the same tribe are often called brothers due to their common ancestry. The sentence parallels God’s previous statement: Certainly We sent Noah to his people (). Therefore, the meaning intended here is: ‘And to ʿĀd, We sent their brother Hūd.’ The omission of the verb may be what necessitated placing the phrase ‘to ʿĀd’ before ‘Hūd.’ God did not say, for example, ‘And Hūd to ʿĀd’ as he said ‘Noah to his people’, because in the former case there was a verb explicitly used to say that God sent Noah to his people, while in this case the use of the phrase ‘to ʿĀd’, suggests the act of sending, and is therefore more apparent and clearer than the other way around.
He said, ‘O my people! Worship Allah. You have no other god besides Him: you merely fabricate’: This sentence sounds like the answer to a question posed by the audience when they heard the phrase, ‘And to ʿĀd, their brother Hūd’, namely: ‘And what did he say to them?’ To which the response is He said, ‘O my people! Worship Allah…’, which is why this is presented as a new statement, without a conjunction such as ‘and’ joining it to the previous phrase.
When Hūd says, ‘Worship Allah’, this implies exclusivity, meaning: ‘worship Him and do not worship the deities that you have taken up as lords besides God, whom you worship so that they may be intercessors for you with God, without you worshipping Him.’ Further evidence of this exclusivity can be found in the statement immediately after: ‘You have no other god besides Him: you merely fabricate,’ which suggests that they had taken up other deities to worship and made false claims about God by associating partners with Him and claiming they were intercessors.
يَا قَوْمِ لَا أَسْأَلُكُمْ عَلَيْهِ أَجْرًا ۖ إِنْ أَجْرِيَ إِلَّا عَلَى الَّذِي فَطَرَنِي ۚ أَفَلَا تَعْقِلُونَ ٥١
(11:51) ‘O my people! I do not ask you any reward for it. My reward lies only with Him who originated me (alladhī faṭaranī). Do you not apply reason?’
In Majmaʿ al-Bayān, al-Ṭabrisī writes: ‘The word faṭara (“to originate”) is means to split by God’s command, just as leaves separate from trees. Creation is called fiṭra because it is like what has split from nothingness and come into being.’ Al-Rāghib explains: ‘The original meaning of faṭara is “to split lengthwise”… thus, God’s creation is called fiṭra because it means to bring something into being and originate it in a way that causes its actions to come forth. The verse , the origination (fiṭra) of Allah according to which He originated mankind () is how God refers to the knowledge of Himself that He has created and placed in people. The fiṭra of God is the part of the human being He has empowered to apprehend the realities of faith, which is referred to by His saying: If you ask them, “Who created them?” they will surely say, “Allah” ().
It appears that fiṭra refers to bringing something forth from utter nonexistence. The specificity understood from a phrase like the origination (fiṭra) of Allah according to which He originated mankind () arises from the pattern of the word ‘fiṭra’, which is a causative form. On this basis, some interpret ‘fiṭra’ as ‘creation’, but this is not quite correct. ‘Creation’ refers to the formation of a shape from matter by assembling parts. As God said, and when you would create from clay the form of a bird (). Therefore, fiṭra refers to something more than this.
The purpose of Hūd’s statement in the verse presently under discussion is to dispel any suspicion that he might be acting in the pursuit of his own interests or aimlessly. The meaning is, ‘O people, I do not ask for any reward for what I call you to, so that you won’t accuse me of seeking personal benefit even if it ends up harming you. However, I am not calling to you without seeking any reward either, so this is not a senseless act. Rather, I am seeking a reward from God, who created me and originated me. Can’t you understand from what I am saying to you that it becomes clear that I am giving you sincere advice you in my call? All I want is to lead you to the truth.’
وَيَا قَوْمِ اسْتَغْفِرُوا رَبَّكُمْ ثُمَّ تُوبُوا إِلَيْهِ يُرْسِلِ السَّمَاءَ عَلَيْكُمْ مِدْرَارًا وَيَزِدْكُمْ قُوَّةً إِلَىٰ قُوَّتِكُمْ وَلَا تَتَوَلَّوْا مُجْرِمِينَ ٥٢
(11:52) And, ‘O my people! Plead with your Lord for forgiveness, then turn to Him penitently: He will send copious rains (midrār) for you from the sky (samāʾ), and add power to your power. So do not turn your backs as guilty ones.’
The meaning of his statement, ‘Plead with your Lord for forgiveness, then turn to Him penitently’ has been discussed in our commentary on the verse at the beginning of this chapter, Plead with your Lord for forgiveness, then turn to Him penitently ().
As for the phrase, He will send copious rains for you from the sky, this is presented as a consequence for, Please with your Lord for forgiveness. In other words: ‘If you plead with your Lord for forgiveness, then He will send copious rains for you from the sky.’ The meaning of the term samāʾ (‘sky’) here is, in fact, the clouds, as samāʾ denotes something that overshadows another thing. Some have also said that samāʾ actually refers to the rains themselves, which is a common usage of the term. The term midrār is the emphatic form of darr (‘to flow plentifully’), a verb that was originally used in connection with milk but came be used figuratively for rain and then anything of benefit or utility. So, sending the copious rains from the sky means sending clouds which continuously release beneficial rains that revive the earth, causes crops and grass to grow, and waters gardens and orchards.
‘… and add power to your power’ has been understood to mean to increase the strength of their faith in addition to the strength of their bodies. Hūd’s people were known for their physical prowess, and had they believed they would have enjoyed the might of faith in addition to the might of their bodies. Some have said that this ‘power’ refers to physical strength, just as Noah said to his people: ‘He will send for you abundant rains from the sky, and aid you with wealth and sons, and provide you with gardens and provide you with streams’ (). However, perhaps a more generalized interpretation of this phrase is to be preferred.
‘So do not turn your backs as guilty ones’—serves to explain the meaning of the command, ‘Plead with your Lord for forgiveness, then turn to Him penitently.’ In other words: ‘Worshipping these deities you have taken up besides God is a crime; an act of disobedience that will incur the divine wrath. Therefore, you must seek God’s forgiveness for your wrongdoing and return to Him with faith, so that He may show mercy to you by sending abundant rain-filled clouds upon you and add strength to your strength.’
This verse indicates, first of all, that the people of Hūd had been afflicted by a drought and their lands had grown barren, which is suggested by His saying: ‘He will send copious rains for you from the sky’ and also by their own words, which God recounts elsewhere: When they saw it as a cloud advancing toward their valleys, they said, ‘This cloud brings us rain.’ ‘Rather it is what you sought to hasten: a hurricane carrying a painful punishment …’ ().
Second, it indicates that there is a complete correlation between people’s actions and the cosmic events which afflict them. Righteous deeds result in the multiplication of blessings and sending down of divine grace, while evil deeds invite successive calamities and disasters, bringing about anger, misery, and destruction, as indicated by the verse: If the people of the towns had been faithful and Godwary, We would have opened to them blessings from the heaven and the earth (). A detailed discussion about this has already been presented in our commentary on verses 94–102 of Sūrah al-Aʿrāf.
قَالُوا يَا هُودُ مَا جِئْتَنَا بِبَيِّنَةٍ وَمَا نَحْنُ بِتَارِكِي آلِهَتِنَا عَنْ قَوْلِكَ وَمَا نَحْنُ لَكَ بِمُؤْمِنِينَ ٥٣
(11:53) They said, ‘O Hūd, you have not brought us any manifest proof. We are not going to abandon our gods for what you say, and we are not going to believe you.
In the previous three verses, beginning with, ‘O my people! Worship Allah. You have no other god besides Him…, Hūd had implored his people for two things: To leave their gods and return to worshipping the One God alone, and to believe in him and follow what he advises them to do. They responded to him, in summary and in detail, in the manner recounted in this verse.
In summary, they said, ‘you have not brought us any manifest proof’, meaning that your call is devoid of any argument or miraculous signs to support it, and therefore it will not convince us to heed what you advise.
In detail, they responded to his call to reject the partners they had set up besides God by saying, ‘We are not going to abandon our gods for what you say’, and they responded to his call for them to believe and obey by saying, ‘and we are not going to believe you.’ Therefore, they rejected him on both counts.
إِنْ نَقُولُ إِلَّا اعْتَرَاكَ بَعْضُ آلِهَتِنَا بِسُوءٍ ۗ قَالَ إِنِّي أُشْهِدُ اللَّهَ وَاشْهَدُوا أَنِّي بَرِيءٌ مِمَّا تُشْرِكُونَ ٥٤ مِنْ دُونِهِ ۖ فَكِيدُونِي جَمِيعًا ثُمَّ لَا تُنْظِرُونِ ٥٥
(11:54-55) All we say is that some of our gods have visited you with some evil.’ He said, ‘I call Allah to witness—and you too be witnesses—that I repudiate what you take as partners besides Him. Now try out your stratagems against me, together, without granting me any respite.’
Then Hūd’s people presented their own opinion to him, hoping to dishearten him and cause him to lose hope of ever winning them over, by saying: ‘All we say is that some of our gods have visited you with some evil.’ In other words, they have harmed him with some adversity. They mean to say that they believe his condition is due to some of their gods cursing him with an affliction, such as madness, for insulting them and speaking ill of them. Hence, they believe he has lost his mind, so there is no need to pay attention to his call in any case.
How did Hūd respond? He said, ‘I call Allah to witness—and you too be witnesses—that I repudiate what you take as partners besides Him. Now try out your stratagems against me, together, without granting me any respite.’ His answer was to announce his disavowal of the partners they had set up besides God and then challenging them to plot against him altogether and without delay.
When he said, ‘I repudiate what you take as partners besides Him’, this is a speech act (inshāʾ) rather than a mere statement of fact (ikhbār), which is more appropriate for the context in which this takes place. Of course, this does not mean he was not innocent of such idolatry from the very beginning, as publicly proclaiming one’s disassociation does not mean that one had not already enacted it previously. As for his statement, ‘Now try out your stratagems against me, together, without granting me any respite’, this is a challenge that is intended to demonstrate their impotence against him and his message.
The prophet Hūd replied in this way to show his people that their gods cannot harm him, in spite of his public repudiation of them. If these deities actually possessed knowledge and power, they would have overpowered him and taken revenge against him for insulting them, just as his people claimed that some of their gods had afflicted him with a misfortune. The fact that nothing happened to him as a result of this repudiation is clear proof that these are not real gods and that they didn’t afflict him with a misfortune as they claimed. The people would also see that they themselves are unable to harm him, despite their power and strength, which was unmatched by anyone else at their time. Had he not been a prophet from God, truthful in his words and protected by his Lord, they would have had the power to punish him or drive him away.
Therefore, the purpose of Hūd invoking both God and his people as witnesses in his disavowal becomes clear. He invokes God as a witness to make his repudiation of his peoples gods truthful and genuine, free of eyeservice or hypocrisy. His calling his people to act as witnesses is to get their attention and make them see first-hand how their gods are incapable of either answering Hūd or taking revenge on him, and how they themselves are likewise incapable of punishing him.
This also demonstrates the correctness of the reading offered by some scholars, namely that this challenge serves as a miracle of the prophet Hūd. This is because it decisively refutes their claims by presenting a compelling argument—particularly their claim that he has not brought them any manifest proof. It is highly unlikely that Hūd, as a prophet, would fail to respond to such a claim about his mission and preaching, especially when this challenge and demonstration of their inability can be taken as a miraculous sign and, therefore, a manifest proof in its own right. Similarly, his disavowal of partners other than God is a valid demonstration of the fact that they are not gods and that none of them have afflicted him with any misfortune.
Therefore, the truth is that when Hūd said, ‘I call Allah to witness—and you too be witnesses …’, this is itself a logical argument against the divinity of the partners they had set up besides God and a miraculous sign for the truthfulness of Hūd’s message.
When Hūd uses the word ‘together’ in ‘try out your stratagems against me, together’, this shows that it is his intent to confound them and all of their false gods and, thereby, to demonstrate beyond all doubt that he is on the right path and they are astray.
إِنِّي تَوَكَّلْتُ عَلَى اللَّهِ رَبِّي وَرَبِّكُمْ ۚ مَا مِنْ دَابَّةٍ إِلَّا هُوَ آخِذٌ بِنَاصِيَتِهَا ۚ إِنَّ رَبِّي عَلَىٰ صِرَاطٍ مُسْتَقِيمٍ ٥٦
(11:56) ‘Indeed I have put my trust in Allah, my Lord and your Lord. There is no living being but He holds it by its forelock. Indeed my Lord is on a straight path.’
When someone issues a challenge to their opponent, it is in order to demonstrate the latter’s incompetence and impotence. Therefore, it makes sense that such a challenge should be issued by someone who is not afraid of their opponent. Even if the opponent is capable of doing what he has been challenged to do, he is not capable of intimidating him or forcing him to accede to his demands. As the sorcerers said to Pharaoh: Decide whatever you may. You can only decide about the life of this world ().
Hūd’s statement, ‘Now try out your stratagems against me, together, without granting me any respite’ could be read as meaning that he does not fear them, no matter what they might do. However, he excludes this possibility when he follows up with the statement, ‘Indeed I have put my trust in Allah, my Lord and your Lord.’ This shows that he relies on God in all of his affairs, and God is the one who governs not only his affairs but theirs as well. Then he follows this by saying, ‘There is no living being but He holds it by its forelock. Indeed my Lord is on a straight path.’ Here, he shows that he is indeed saved through his reliance on God because God encompasses them all, overpowers them, and judges according to a single law, which is to support the truth and make it prevail it over falsehood whenever the two confront one another.
Therefore, the fact that Hūd has publicly repudiated their idols and issued the challenge, ‘Now try out your stratagems against me, together, without granting me any respite’, and then continued to live amongst them, safe and secure, unharmed and beyond their ability to harm, constitutes a miraculous sign and a manifest proof that he is God’s messenger to them.
In Hūd’s statement, ‘There is no living being but He holds it by its forelock. Indeed my Lord is on a straight path’, the phrase ‘living being’ refers to all the creatures that move across the earth among the various species of animals. To hold something by its forelock means to exercise supreme authority and absolute control over it. God being upon the straight path symbolizes the unchanging and timeless cosmic order that He has instituted in His creation and the fact that He governs its affairs based on justice and wisdom. As a result, He causes the truth to prevail and falsehood to vanish whenever they come into conflict.
Therefore, the meaning of Hūd’s words here are: ‘I have placed my trust in God, my Lord and your Lord, for the success of my argument against you—the argument that shows I have disavowed your idols and that neither you or your idols can harm me in the least. This is because God is the Sovereign who has complete authority over me and you, as well as over all the creatures that inhabit the world. His law is just, constant, and unchanging, so He will uphold His religion and protect me from your evil.’
Note that he did not say, ‘Indeed my Lord and your Lord are on a straight path’ in the same manner as he said, ‘Indeed I have put my trust in Allah, my Lord and your Lord.’ This is because he utters these words in the context of praying for himself against his people, expecting that God will protect him from their harm. Therefore, he takes God as his Lord alone, and not the Lord of his people. After all, it is more fitting for him to invoke God as his Lord and to hold fast to the bond of servitude between him and his Lord so that his supplication will be granted. This contrasts with his saying, ‘Indeed I have put my trust in Allah, my Lord and your Lord’, in which he intends to highlight the universality of God’s sovereignty and the fact that He encompasses all.
فَإِنْ تَوَلَّوْا فَقَدْ أَبْلَغْتُكُمْ مَا أُرْسِلْتُ بِهِ إِلَيْكُمْ ۚ وَيَسْتَخْلِفُ رَبِّي قَوْمًا غَيْرَكُمْ وَلَا تَضُرُّونَهُ شَيْئًا ۚ إِنَّ رَبِّي عَلَىٰ كُلِّ شَيْءٍ حَفِيظٌ ٥٧
(11:57) ‘But if you turn your backs, then I have communicated to you whatever I was sent to you with. My Lord will make another people succeed you, and you will not hurt Allah in the least. Indeed my Lord is watchful over all things.’
This part of Hūd’s speech concerns his people’s claim, ‘All we say is that some of our gods have visited you with some evil,’ which indicates that they are determined not to believe in him and persist in their obstinate denial of the truth. In other words: ‘If you turn away and refuse to believe in me or heed my commands, know that I have conveyed my Lord’s message to you, the argument has been completed against you, and tribulation has become your due.’
‘My Lord will make another people succeed you, and you will not hurt Allah in the least. Indeed my Lord is watchful over all things’: This is both a warning and a statement of fact about the natural consequences that will follow from their wrongdoing. For he had promised them that if they asked God for forgiveness and turned to Him penitently, He would send abundant rain clouds upon them and added strength to their strength, and he forbade them from turning away and remaining guilty, as this would lead to a severe punishment.
When Hūd says, ‘My Lord will make another people succeed you …’, this means that God will make another people successors on the earth in their place, as the human being is a successor from God upon the earth, as per the verse in which God told the angels, ‘Indeed I am going to set a successor on the earth’ (). And Hūd had already made clear to them that God had made them successors on the earth after Noah’s people, as we read in the verse: Remember when He made you successors after the people of Noah, and increased you vastly in creation ().
It is clear from the context that this declarative sentence is connected to another implied one. The implicit meaning is: ‘My Lord will dispose of you and replace you with another people…’ as He says, . If He wishes, He will take you away, and make whomever He wishes succeed you ().
As for the statement, ‘and you will not hurt Allah in the least’, the context suggests that this follows on from the preceding statement. In other words: ‘You are not capable of inflicting any kind of harm on Him, whether in the form of depriving Him of something or some other way. If He wishes to destroy you, you cannot prevent Him from doing so, nor does your punishment and destruction entail any loss for Him. For indeed, my Lord is watchful over all things. Nothing is absent from His knowledge, nor is anything beyond His power.’ There are other inaccurate readings that scholars have suggested for this verse, and we have omitted them for the sake of conciseness.
وَلَمَّا جَاءَ أَمْرُنَا نَجَّيْنَا هُودًا وَالَّذِينَ آمَنُوا مَعَهُ بِرَحْمَةٍ مِنَّا وَنَجَّيْنَاهُمْ مِنْ عَذَابٍ غَلِيظٍ ٥٨
(11:58) And when Our edict came, We delivered Hūd and the faithful who were with him, by a mercy from Us, and We delivered them from a harsh punishment.
The phrase, And when Our edict came, refers to when the punishment descended or, more specifically, when the divine command was issued for a decisive judgement to be made between the messenger and his people. As God has said elsewhere: A messenger may not bring any sign except by Allah’s permission. Hence when Allah’s edict comes, judgement is made with justice, and it is thence that the falsifiers become losers ().
When God says, by a mercy from Us, this is an apparent reference to the special mercy that is reserved for the faithful, which necessitates divine support for their religion and saving them from God’s wrath and the divine punishment of extermination. As God has said, Indeed We shall help Our messengers and those who have faith in the life of the world and on the day when the witnesses rise up ().
… and We delivered them from a harsh punishment: The context indicates that this refers to the punishment that enveloped the disbelievers of Hūd’s people, so this serves as an explanatory phrase for the sentence before it. Some scholars have suggested it refers to the punishment of the Hereafter, but such a reading has no basis in the text.
وَتِلْكَ عَادٌ ۖ جَحَدُوا بِآيَاتِ رَبِّهِمْ وَعَصَوْا رُسُلَهُ وَاتَّبَعُوا أَمْرَ كُلِّ جَبَّارٍ عَنِيدٍ ٥٩ وَأُتْبِعُوا فِي هَٰذِهِ الدُّنْيَا لَعْنَةً وَيَوْمَ الْقِيَامَةِ ۗ أَلَا إِنَّ عَادًا كَفَرُوا رَبَّهُمْ ۗ أَلَا بُعْدًا لِعَادٍ قَوْمِ هُودٍ ٦٠
(11:59-60) Such were ʿĀd: they impugned the signs of their Lord and disobeyed His messengers and followed the dictates of every obdurate tyrant (jabbār ʿanīd). So they were pursued by a curse in this world and on the Day of Resurrection. Look! Indeed ʿĀd defied their Lord. Look! Away with ʿĀd, the people of Hūd!
These two verses twice summarize the story of ʿĀd.
The first summary is: Such were ʿĀd… and on the Day of Resurrection (). This recalls that they denied the signs of their Lord, which came to them in the form of wisdom, admonition, and miracles and showed them the path of righteousness and clearly distinguished truth from falsehood for them. So, they denied God’s signs despite the knowledge they had received and disobeyed the messengers of their Lord, including Hūd and those before him. This is because to deny a single messenger is tantamount to denying all of them, for all of the prophets called humankind to follow the same religion. Therefore, even if they only defied Hūd directly, by disobeying him they had defied all of the messengers of God. This is also apparent from another verse of the Qurʾan: ʿĀd impugned the messengers, when Hūd, their brother, said to them, ‘Will you not be Godwary?’ (). This is also hinted at by the verse, And mention the brother of ʿĀd, when he warned his people at Ahqaf—and warners have passed away before and after him … (). It is possible that other messengers were sent to them between Hūd and Noah who were not mentioned in the Qurʾan, but the context of the verses under discussion does not support this.
The verse also states that the people of ʿĀd followed every powerful and obstinate tyrant amongst them, which explains why they turned away from following Hūd and his teachings. This is because a jabbār (‘tyrant’) is a person who subjugates others to his will, forcing them to do what he wants, while one who is obstinate (ʿanīd) refuses to accept the truth. This summarizes their condition: they denied the signs, disobeyed the messengers, and obeyed tyrants.
Then, God mentions the consequences of their deeds: So they were pursued by a curse in this world and on the Day of Resurrection. This means God cursed them in this world and cast them away from His mercy. The proof of the existence of this curse is the punishment that pursued them. This could also refer to the sins and misdeeds that are recorded against their names for as long as the world lasts, as they set a precedent of idolatry and disbelief for those generations who came after them. As God says: Indeed it is We who revive the dead and write what they have sent ahead and their effects ().
Some interpret this verse to mean they were cursed in this world, such that everyone who heard their story afterwards, those who saw their ruins, and every messenger who reached them, cursed them. The curse on the Day of Resurrection is proven by the eternal punishment they will endure then, as the Day of Resurrection is the Day of Recompense.
Note the subtle eloquence in the fact that God describes them as ‘following’ tyrants and then that says that they were ‘pursued’ by a curse.
Look! Indeed ʿĀd defied their Lord. Look! Away with ʿĀd, the people of Hūd!—meaning, ‘they disbelieved in their Lord.’ This is the second of the two summaries that we identified above. In fact, it is almost like an encapsulation of the first summary. The phrase, Look! Indeed ʿĀd … parallels the description Such were ʿĀd: they impugned …, while Look! Away with ʿĀd … parallels So they were pursued by a curse in this world …
This sentence suggests that the curse mentioned earlier refers to a divine curse rather than a human one, and that of the various interpretations mentioned above, the second is most appropriate, not the third.
Examining Narrations
- In Tafsīr al-ʿAyyāshī, it is narrated from Abū ʿAmr al-Saʿadī: ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib said about the verse, Indeed my Lord is on a straight path (): ‘It means that He is in the right. He will requite with good, evil with evil, and He pardons and forgives whom He wills, glory be to Him, the Exalted.’
Author’s comment: This explanation has been mentioned previously, and it has been narrated from the Prophet’s Household that the land of ʿĀd was in the desert, and that they had many crops and date palms. They lived long lives and tall strong bodies, but they worshipped idols. God sent Hūd to them, who invited them to submit to God and to renounce idolatry. But they refused and did not believe Hūd, and they persecuted him. Therefore, the sky withheld its rain from them for seven years until they suffered a famine.
The withholding of the rain from them is also reported in a Sunni tradition on the authority of al-Ḍaḥḥāk, who said: ‘Rain was withheld from ʿĀd for three years. Then Hūd said to them, ‘O my people! Plead with your Lord for forgiveness, then turn to Him penitently: He will send copious rains for you from the sky …’ (). But they stubbornly refused to change their ways.’ It has been previously noted that the verses do contain indications of this.
The reader should know that there are very many narrations about the story of Hūd and ʿĀd are plentiful, but they often contain details that cannot be validated by the Qurʾan or confirmed by rational inquiry, which is why we have glossed over them.
There are also other reports from Shiʿa and Sunni sources describing the gardens of ʿĀd, which is attributed to King Shaddād. This garden is mentioned in the verse, Iram, of the pillars, the like of which was not created among cities (). We will discuss this further in our commentary on Sūrah al-Fajr.
Discourse
The discussion “On the Story of Hūd” appears here in the printed volume. Read it in the Al-Mizan App.
See al-Mīzān Eng. vol. 16 (Ed.) ↩︎