Tafheem ul Quran

Surah 69 Al-Haqqah, Ayat 4-8

كَذَّبَتۡ ثَمُوۡدُ وَعَادٌۢ بِالۡقَارِعَةِ‏ ﴿69:4﴾ فَاَمَّا ثَمُوۡدُ فَاُهۡلِكُوۡا بِالطَّاغِيَةِ‏ ﴿69:5﴾ وَاَمَّا عَادٌ فَاُهۡلِكُوۡا بِرِيۡحٍ صَرۡصَرٍ عَاتِيَةٍۙ‏ ﴿69:6﴾ سَخَّرَهَا عَلَيۡهِمۡ سَبۡعَ لَيَالٍ وَّثَمٰنِيَةَ اَيَّامٍۙ حُسُوۡمًا ۙ فَتَرَى الۡقَوۡمَ فِيۡهَا صَرۡعٰىۙ كَاَنَّهُمۡ اَعۡجَازُ نَخۡلٍ خَاوِيَةٍ​ ۚ‏ ﴿69:7﴾ فَهَلۡ تَرٰى لَهُمۡ مِّنۡۢ بَاقِيَةٍ‏ ﴿69:8﴾

(69:4) The Thamud3 and the Ad denied the (possibility of a) sudden calamity,4 calling it false. (69:5) Then the Thamud were destroyed by an awesome upheaval;5 (69:6) and the Ad were destroyed by a furiously raging wind-storm (69:7) which He let loose upon them for seven nights and eight days in succession; so that (if you had been there) you might have seen people lying prostrate, as though they were uprooted trunks of hollowed palm trees. (69:8) Do you now see any trace of them?


Notes

3. As the disbelievers of Makkah denied Resurrection and took the news of its coming lightly, they have been warned at the outset, as if to say: Resurrection is inevitable: whether you believe in it or not, it will in any case take place. Then, they are told: It is not a simple and ordinary thing that a person accepts the news of the coming of an event or not, but it has a deep relationship with the morals of the nations and with their future. The history of the nations, which lived before you, testifies that the nation which refused to believe in the Hereafter and thought this worldly life only to be the real life and denied that man would have ultimately to render an account of his deeds before God, corrupted itself morally until the punishment of God overtook it and eliminated it from the world.

4. The word al-qariah is derived from qar, which means to hammer, to beat, to knock and to strike one thing upon the other. This other word for Resurrection has been used to give an idea of its terror and dread.

5. In Surah (Al-Aaraf, Ayat 78), it has been called ar-rajfah (a terrible earthquake); in (Surah Houd, Ayat 67) as-sayhah (a violent blast); in (Surah HaMim As-Sajdah, Ayat 17), it has been said: They were overtaken by saiqa-tul-adhab (a humiliating scourge); and here the same punishment has been described as at-taghiyah (a violent catastrophe). These words describe different aspects of the same calamity.