35. Please compare this with (Surah Al-Aaraf, Ayats 80-84) and (Surah Houd, Ayats 77-83).

36. Here the story has been related in brief. But we learn from (Surah Houd, Ayats 77-83) that Prophet Lot (peace be upon him) was greatly perturbed and distressed at the visit of the angels. He said to himself, “This is a day of woe.” The reason why he was distressed, as implied in the Quran and explicitly expressed in the traditions, was that the angels had come to Prophet Lot (peace be upon him) in the form of beautiful boys, and he knew how perverse and wicked his people were. He was distressed for he could not send them away because they were his guests, and because he did not know how to protect them from those villains.

37. That is, you should walk behind your people lest anyone of them should stay behind.

38. It did not mean: “look not behind thee, lest thou be consumed,” as stated in the Bible. But it merely meant to warn them: None of you should turn round to see what was happening behind them lest you should stop to see when you heard the cries of the smitten people. For it is neither the time nor the place viewing the destruction nor shedding tears of regret. If you stop even for a minute in the territory of the smitten people you also might get hurt from the rain of stones.

39. This shows that those People had gone to the lowest depths of immorality. No sooner did they hear the news of the arrival of handsome strangers in their town than they rushed rejoicing to the house of Prophet Lot (peace be upon him) and impudently demanded that he should hand over his guests to them for the gratification of their lust. The pity is that there had remained not a single person among them to make a protest against such a heinous sin. Moreover, this shows that all of them, as a community, had totally lost every sense of decency, and they felt no shame at all to make such a wicked demand on him openly. The very fact, that they felt no hesitation in making such a wicked demand brazen facedly from a pious and holy man like Prophet Lot (peace be upon him), shows that the heinous crime was so common among them that they would not spare anyone.

The Talmud records many instances of the all round moral degradation of the people of Lot. Once a stranger was passing through their territory. As the darkness approached, he was forced to pass the night near Sodom. As he had his own provisions with him, he did not stand in any need of help from the town’s folks, so he lay under a tree to pass the night. But a Sodomite entreated him to accompany him to his house. During the night he did away with the donkey and merchandise of the stranger. When he began to cry for help in the morning, the town’s folk came there not to help him but to rob him of what had been left with him.

On one occasion Sarah sent her slave to Sodom to inquire after Prophet Lot’s household. When the slave entered the town, he saw that a Sodomite was beating a stranger. Naturally the slave of Sarah tried to rouse his sense of decency, saying, why do you ill treat helpless strangers like this? In answer to this appeal, his head was broken in public.

On another occasion a poor man happened to come to Sodom but no one gave him anything to eat. When he was half dead with starvation, he fell to the ground in a helpless plight. A daughter of Prophet Lot saw him and sent some food for him. At this the Sodomites reproached Prophet Lot and his daughter and threatened to expel them from there if they would not refrain from such deeds.

After citing several similar incidents, the Talmud says that those people had become so cruel, so deceitful and so dishonest in their dealings that no traveler could pass safe through their territory nor could a poor person expect any food or help from them. Many a time it so happened that a poor stranger came there, and died from hunger. Then they would strip the clothes from his body and bury him naked. If a foreigner committed the blunder of visiting their territory, they would publicly rob him of everything, and make fool of him if he appealed to them to redress the wrong. Then they would openly commit shameless deeds in the gardens which they had grown in their valley because there was none to rebuke them except Prophet Lot (peace be upon him). The Quran has summed up the whole of their wicked story in two concise sentences: (1) They had already been committing very wicked deeds, (Surah Houd, Ayat 78), and (2) You gratify your lust with males: you rob travelers, and you commit wicked deeds publicly in your assemblies.

40. In (E.N. 87 of Surah Houd), it has been explained what Prophet Lot (peace be upon him) meant by this. It may also be added that such words as these were uttered by an honorable man like him in the last resort, when all his entreaties and earnest requests had failed to prevent those people from their evil designs towards his guests.

Here it will be worthwhile to clear the significance of the words which were uttered by Prophet Lot (peace be upon him) as they occur in Surah Houd (Ayat 78). When he entreated those wicked people not to molest his guests, saying, “Here are my daughters”, he was unaware that his guests were angels in the disguise of handsome boys. The angels revealed their identity only when the wicked crowd gathered at the residence of his guests and began to threaten them with their wicked designs, and Prophet Lot (peace be upon him) began to lament, “I wish I had the power to set you right or I could find some strong support for refuge.” It was then that the angels revealed themselves, saying, “We are envoys sent by your Lord.” This sequence of events shows that Prophet Lot (peace be upon him) had made that offer only when he had felt to be utterly helpless. It is very important to keep this in view because the sequence of events in this Surah is different from that in Surah Houd. One is liable to have a misunderstanding as to why Prophet Lot (peace be upon him) wailed and lamented when he knew all the while that his guests were angels and could defend themselves against those wicked people. As regards the apparent difference between the two sequences, it may be pointed out that here the important thing to be stated is that the angels come with the truth. Therefore that part of the story (Ayats 61-66) has been related first in order to make the point more prominent.

41. These “stones of baked clay” might have been meteoric showers or volcanic eruptions that flew and rained upon them, or these might have been blown by a strong wind.

42. That is, that smitten territory lies on the high road from Hijaz (Arabia) to Syria and Egypt. Travelers come across these signs of destruction which are very prominent in the territory that lies to the southeast of the Dead Sea. The geographers are of the opinion that there is no other land on the surface of the Earth which looks desolate as this territory, especially its southern part.

43. The people of Al-Aikah were the community of Prophet Shuaib (peace be upon him) and were called Midianites after the name of their capital city and their territory. As regards Al-Aikah, it was the ancient name of Tabuk and literally means a thick forest.

44. Midian lay on the route from Hijaz to Palestine and Syria.