He said, “O my people, consider: if I stand upon clear proof from my Lord and He has given me mercy from Himself, then who could protect me from Allah if I disobeyed Him? You would only increase me in loss. O my people, this is Allah’s she-camel, a sign for you. So leave her to graze in Allah’s land, and do not harm her, lest a near punishment seize you.” (63–64)

But they hamstrung her, so he said, “Enjoy yourselves in your dwellings for three days. That is a promise that will not prove false.” (65)

Concerning His saying, “He has given me mercy from Himself”: that is, prophethood and wisdom. “Then who could protect me from Allah”: that is, who could prevent [the punishment of] Allah from reaching me (1) “if I disobeyed Him? You would only increase me in loss.” Ibn ‘Abbas said: Its meaning is: nothing but clearer insight into your loss.

Al-Husayn (2) ibn al-Fadl said: Salih, peace be upon him, was not himself in a state of loss for him to say, “You would only increase me in loss.” Rather, the meaning is: By what you say, you only increase my attributing loss to you.

In linguistic usage, declaring someone sinful or wicked means ascribing sinfulness or wickedness to him. Likewise, declaring someone a loser means ascribing loss to him.

Concerning His saying, “O my people, this is Allah’s she-camel, a sign for you”: the phrase “a sign for you” is in the accusative, functioning as a circumstantial qualifier and syntactically detached from the preceding construction. This was because his people asked him to bring forth from this rock a she-camel ten months pregnant, pointing to a particular rock. So Salih, peace be upon him, supplicated, and a she-camel emerged from it and immediately gave birth to a young one like herself (3). This is the meaning of His saying: “This is Allah’s she-camel, a sign for you. So leave her to graze in Allah’s land”—upon grass and vegetation, without her upkeep being your responsibility—“and do not harm her”; that is, do not injure her by hamstringing her, “lest a near punishment seize you,” should you kill her.

“But they hamstrung her, so he said”—that is, Salih—“Enjoy yourselves”: live (4), “in your dwellings,” that is, in your homes, “for three days. That is a promise that will not prove false”; that is, it is not a lie.

It is related that he said to them: The punishment will come to you after three days. On the first day, you will arise with your faces yellow; on the second day, red; and on the third day, black. It happened exactly as he said, and the punishment came upon them on the fourth day.