except for a disabled slave woman called Dhari‘ah bint Salif. She was an obstinate disbeliever and intensely hostile to Salih. After she had witnessed the punishment, Allah restored the use of her legs, and she fled faster than anything ever seen, until she reached Qazah, which is Wadi al-Qura. She told them of the punishment she had witnessed and of what had befallen Thamud. Then she asked for water and was given some to drink; when she drank, she died.
Al-Suddi mentioned another account regarding the hamstringing of the she-camel. He said: Allah Most High revealed to Salih, peace be upon him, that his people would hamstring his she-camel. So he told them of this, and they said, “We would not do such a thing.” Salih said, “During this month, a boy will be born among you who will hamstring her, and your destruction will come at his hands.” They said, “No child will be born to us during this month without our killing him.”
Nine of them had sons born to them during that month, and they slaughtered their sons. Then a son was born to the tenth man, but he refused to slaughter his son, for he had never had a child before. His son was blue-eyed and ruddy-complexioned, and he grew with remarkable speed. Whenever he passed by the nine and they saw him, they would say, “Had our sons been alive, they would have been like this one.” Thus, the nine became enraged with Salih, because he had been the cause of their children’s deaths. They swore by Allah that they would kill him and his family by night.
They said, “We shall set out so that people see that we have gone on a journey. Then we shall come to the cave and remain there. When night comes and Salih goes out to his mosque, we shall come upon him and kill him. Then we shall return to the cave, remain there, and afterward return to our camp and say, ‘We did not witness the destruction of his family, and we are surely telling the truth.’ They will believe us, thinking that we had gone on a journey.”
Salih did not sleep with them in the town. Rather, he would spend the night in a mosque known as Salih’s Mosque. In the morning, he would come to them, admonishing and reminding them; and when evening came, he would go out to the mosque and spend the night there. So they set out and entered the cave, but the cave collapsed upon them and killed them. Some men among those who had learned of their plot went out and found them crushed. They returned, crying out in the town, “O servants of Allah! Salih was not content merely to have ordered them to kill their children, until he killed them himself!” Thereupon, the people of the town united in hamstringing the she-camel.
Ibn Ishaq said: The nine swore to kill Salih by night after they had hamstrung the she-camel, as we have mentioned.
Al-Suddi and others said: When the tenth man’s son—namely, Qudar—was born, he attained in a single day the maturity that others attained in a week, and in a single month the maturity that others attained in a year. When he grew older, he sat with some people who were drinking wine. They wanted water with which to mix their drink, but it was the she-camel’s allotted day for drinking, and they found that she had consumed the water. This distressed them greatly, and they said, “What use is milk to us? If only we could have the water that this she-camel drinks, so that we could water our livestock and crops with it, that would be better for us.” The tenth man’s son said, “Would you like me to hamstring her for you?” They said, “Yes.” So they hamstrung her.
Abd al-Wahid al-Mulayhi informed us; Ahmad ibn Abdullah al-Nu‘aymi informed us; Muhammad ibn Yusuf narrated to us; Muhammad ibn Isma‘il narrated to us; Muhammad ibn Miskin narrated to us; Yahya ibn Hassan ibn Hayyan, Abu Zakariyya, narrated to us; Sulayman narrated from Abdullah ibn Dinar.