Hūd

فَعَقَرُوهَا فَقَالَ تَمَتَّعُوا فِي دَارِكُمْ ثَلاَثَةَ أَيَّامٍ ذَلِكَ وَعْدٌ غَيْرُ مَكْذُوبٍ

65. “So they hamstrung her. Then he said: ‘Enjoy yourselves in your abode for three days, (then will be your ruin). That is a promise not to be belied.””

Through traditional narrations we are informed that only one person had killed the she-camel. Despite this, the Qur’an says: /‘aqaruha/ which means that all of them killed her. This indication signifies that there had been a consensus of opinion among them about the killing. From the Islamic point of view, the ideological bond between individuals causes them to be responsible for the sins of single individuals within the context of that ideology.

Question: What is the underlying philosophy of a three-day grace period? Firstly: So as to give them a chance to repent. Secondly: To provide a means for spiritual pressure and augmentation of the penalty. If a person is told that he will be killed within three days, this very news will serve as the greatest blow upon him psychologically speaking. Thirdly: It provided another good proof for the legitimacy of the Divine prophet since fixing a dead line results from having access to news from the invisible world.

However, one should never take Divine warnings as jokes or lies as scorning them will cause the infliction of Divine penalties.