Al Shu‘arā’

وَأَمْطَرْنَا عَلَيْهِم مَّطَرًا فَسَاء مَطَرُ الْمُنذَرِينَ

إِنَّ فِي ذَلِكَ لاَيَةً وَمَا كَانَ أَكْثَرُهُم مُّؤْمِنِينَ

وَإِنَّ رَبَّكَ لَهُوَ الْعَزِيزُ الرَّحِيمُ

173. “We rained down on them a shower (of brimstone), and evil is the rain of them that were warned.”
174. “Verily in this is a sign, but most of them do not believe.”
175. “And verily your Lord, certainly He is the Mighty, the Merciful.”

The retribution of those who change the path of marriage into the path of sodomy is that the rain of Divine mercy changes into the rain of chastisement, and annihilates them. Yes, the whole nature is at the service of the Divine Power. The same might which causes to send down the rain from the sky, can send down a shower of brimstone. So, Allah says:

This rain was a rain of pebbles which wiped out even the ruins of their buildings. The verse continues saying:

What a horrible rain it was! The rain which overtook those threatened people. The ordinary rains are refreshing and enlivening, but this rain was terrible, and destructive. Verse No.82 from Surah Hud indicates that at first the cities of the people of Lut were destroyed, then a shower of pebbles, layer on layer, came down on them. As we mentioned in the commentary of that verse, the rain of stones was, perhaps, for this aim that their effects would be wiped out, too, and only a heap of stone and dust could be seen from those populated cities.

Were these stone taken from deserts, as the result of a great storm and they were poured over them? Or were they some wandering aerolites which, by the command of Allah, fell on them? Or, as some say, was there a silent volcano near around there which, by the command of Allah, roared and sent a rain of stones over them? It is not known, but it is certain that this fatal shower left no sign of life in that land. Again, at the end of this event we encounter the same couple of sentences that were mentioned at the end of the similar events in this Surah concerning other five great prophets of Allah. The Holy Qur’an implies that there is a sign and an instructive lesson in the story of this unjust and indecent people that had a fatal and unsuspicious end.

It says:

What a sign is more clear than that this event makes you acquainted with some important and helpful issues without that you need any personal experimentation. Yes, the history of the ancient is an instructive lesson and a sign for the coming generations; it is not even an experience, because in experience one must bear some losses so that he obtains some results, but here we obtain the results from the losses of others.

What a mercy can be better than this that Allah does not immediately punish such polluted people and He gives them enough respite to be guided and to review their situation. And also what mercy is superior to this fact that His punishment does not involve both right doers and wrong doers; it is so that if there is a faithful family among thousand misguided families, He rescues these believers. What a glory and might is higher than this that in a short moment He destroys the dwellings of those polluted persons so severely that there remains no effect from them. The land, which must be as a comfortable cradle for them, is commissioned for their death; and the enlivening rain is changed into the rain of fatal stones.