“And Pharaoh, those before him, and the overturned cities came with sin (9). They disobeyed the messenger of their Lord, so He seized them with an overwhelming seizure (10). Indeed, when the water overflowed, We carried you in the sailing vessel (11).”

“As for ‘Ad, they were destroyed by a furiously violent wind.” It rebelled against those charged with keeping it: it did not obey them, and they had no control over it. It exceeded its due measure, so they did not know how much of it had been released. “Which He unleashed upon them”: that is, He sent it against them. Muqatil said: “He gave it power over them.”

“For seven nights and eight days.” Wahb said: “These are the days that the Arabs call the Days of the Old Woman, marked by severe cold and fierce winds.” It was said that they were called the Days of the Old Woman because they fall at the end of winter. It was also said that they were so named because an old woman from the people of ‘Ad entered an underground shelter, and the wind followed her into it and killed her on the eighth day after the punishment descended; then the punishment ceased.

“Consecutive.” Mujahid and Qatadah said: “They came successively, without any interruption.” On this understanding, the word derives from the repeated application of cautery: a cauterizing iron is repeatedly applied to the site of an illness until it heals. Thereafter, anything that is repeated successively came to be called hasim, whose plural is husum, just as shahid has the plural shuhud (“witnesses”). Al-Kalbi and Muqatil said: “Consecutive” means lasting. Al-Nadr ibn Shumayl said: “It cut them off and destroyed them.” The root meaning is cutting off and preventing, from which comes the expression for cutting off an illness. Al-Zajjaj said: “[What the verse indicates is that it is in the sense that] (1) it utterly cuts them off, annihilating and removing them.” Atiyyah said: “It was as though it had cut off all good from its people.”

“So you would see the people lying dead throughout it”: that is, throughout those nights and days. “Lying dead” means destroyed; it is the plural of one who has been struck down. “As though they were hollow trunks of fallen palm trees”: that is, fallen; it was also said that they were empty within. “Can you see any remnant of them?” That is, any surviving soul. In other words, not one of them remained.

“And Pharaoh, and those before him.” The reciters of Basra and al-Kisa’i read it as “those with him,” meaning those of his troops and followers who were with him. The other reciters read it as “those before him,” meaning the disbelieving nations that came before him. “And the overturned cities”: that is, the towns of Lot’s people; what is meant is the inhabitants of those overturned cities. It was also said that it refers to the nations that were overturned because of their sin—that is, destroyed because of their sins. “With sin”: that is, with wrongdoing and disobedience, namely associating partners with Allah.

“They disobeyed the messenger of their Lord”: that is, Lot and Moses. “So He seized them with an overwhelming seizure”: one that increased in severity. Ibn Abbas, may Allah be pleased with them both, said: “A severe one.” It was also said: one exceeding the punishment of other nations.

“Indeed, when the water overflowed”: that is, it transgressed and exceeded its limits, until it rose over everything and towered above it—meaning, at the time of