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fa-lammā raʾawhu ʿāriḍan mustaqbila ʾawdiyatihim qālū hādhā ʿāriḍun mumṭirunā bal huwa mā staʿjaltum bihī rīhun fīhā ʿadhābun ʾalīmun
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,
— Ali Quli Qarai
Surah al-Ahqaf - Verses 24-25
24. When they saw it as a dense cloud coming toward their valleys, they said: “This is a cloud bringing us rain!” Nay, but he [Hud] said that it is that [torment] which you were asking to be hastened – a wind wherein is a painful torment!
25. Destroying everything by the Command of its Lord! So they became such that nothing could be seen except their dwellings! Thus do We recompense the people who are sinners.
The word ‘Aridh denotes a cloud appearing in the sky covering the horizon all over. Awdiya is the plural form of wadi (“valley; dwelling place”). Having faced severe famine and having awaited rain for long, the people of ‘Ad were gladdened to see the cloud in the sky but later on they found out that the cloud was not a harbinger of felicity but one of misfortune. It was the torment sought desirously and hastily by them. Seeing three clouds in the sky, the people of ‘Ad thought that they would bring rain, but they were mistaken. Au contraire, they led to their annihilation. It was the same severe torment of which prophet Hud (as) had informed them and said that had they not believed in Monotheism and had they worshipped the One God, they would have not suffered from the severe torment.
However, they were too ignorant to believe him and said that if he had been in the right he would have brought that severe torment upon them. According to the exegets, the cloud contained a wind which blew so hard that they were desperate and their property and animals were scattered and they were annihilated as well. As per a narration recorded in Manhaj and narrated on the authority of ‘Amr ibn Maymun, the wind blew so hard that it took the tents and the camels with their litters to the sky like grasshoppers jumping up.
According to another narration, the first person to notice the torment was a woman who said:
“I see a wind blowing and blazing with flames.”
Hud (as) took away the believers from among the disbelievers. The wind invigorated the believers and softened their bodies and they enjoyed its blow. The fact is that all creatures are the Divine Host at His Command. They are the enemies of God’s enemies and the friends of God’s friends. If they do not turn away from God’s enemies for a while we should know that God works in mysterious ways and the Creator has granted them respite so that the world may be refashioned.
It is said that when the people of ‘Ad were desperate with the harsh wind blowing, they sought refuge in their houses and closed the doors thinking that they could save themselves from God’s torment. The wind blew harsher and pulled out the doors. It blew for seven days and nights and embraced them beneath the piles of sand in Ahqaf so that they were hidden beneath them and were annihilated:
“such that nothing could be seen except their dwellings!”
According to Verse 25, following the occurrence of the harsh disaster, no trace was seen of the people of ‘Ad but their houses and dwelling places. It becomes evident that when the wind subsided, their dead bodies had also disappeared, since it is said that the wind hurled them toward the mounts so that their bodies were destroyed. Thus is the chastisement decreed for the sinners. If God wills, they have to meet the recompense of their vices so that others may take a lesson.