۞ And remember the brother of Ad, when he warned his people beside the sand-dunes -- and already warners had passed away alike before him and behind him -- saying, 'Serve none but God! Truly I fear for you the chastisement of a dreadful day. 21 but they said, "Have you come to us to turn us away from our deities? Then bring down upon us what you threaten us with, if you are truthful." 22 He said: "The knowledge (of the time of its coming) is with Allah only, and I convey to you that wherewith I have been sent, but I see that you are a people given to ignorance!" 23 Then when they beheld it as an overpeering cloud tending toward their valleys they said: yonder is an overpeering cloud bringing us rain. Nay it is that which ye sought to be hastened: a wind wherein is a torment afflictive. 24 “That destroys all things by the command of its Lord” – so at morning none could be seen except their empty houses; this is the sort of punishment We mete out to the guilty. 25 And verily We had empowered them with that wherewith We have not empowered you, and had assigned them ears and eyes and hearts; but their ears and eyes and hearts availed them naught since they denied the revelations of Allah; and what they used to mock befell them. 26