(1–8) “In the name of Allah, the Most Compassionate, the Most Merciful. The Inevitable Reality! What is the Inevitable Reality? And what can make you know what the Inevitable Reality is? Thamūd and ʿĀd denied the Striking Calamity. As for Thamūd, they were destroyed by the overwhelming blast. And as for ʿĀd, they were destroyed by a furious, raging wind, which He unleashed upon them for seven nights and eight days without respite. You would have seen the people lying lifeless throughout them, as though they were hollow trunks of palm trees. Can you see any remnant of them?”

“The Inevitable Reality” is one of the names of the Day of Resurrection, for it will certainly come to pass and befall creation. On that Day, the true nature of all things and what hearts conceal will be laid bare. Allah Most High therefore magnified and exalted its importance through the repetition in His words: “The Inevitable Reality! What is the Inevitable Reality? And what can make you know what the Inevitable Reality is?” It is indeed of momentous import and tremendous terror. [Part of its gravity is that Allah destroyed the nations that denied it with swift punishment] (1).

He then mentions a manifestation of it that has already occurred and been witnessed in this world: namely, what (2) grievous punishments He inflicted upon defiant nations. He says: “Thamūd denied.” They were the well-known tribe who inhabited al-Hijr, to whom Allah sent His messenger Sālih—peace be upon him—to forbid them from the polytheism they practiced and command them to affirm Allah’s oneness. They rejected his call, denied him, and denied what he told them about the Day of Resurrection—the Striking Calamity that strikes creation with its terrors. Likewise, the first ʿĀd, who inhabited Hadramawt, denied it when Allah sent them His messenger Hūd—peace be upon him—calling them to worship Allah [alone]. They denied him and denied what he told (3) them about the resurrection, so Allah brought swift destruction upon both peoples (4).

“As for Thamūd, they were destroyed by the overwhelming blast.” This was the tremendous, dreadful blast that caused their hearts to split apart and their souls to depart. By morning they lay dead, and nothing could be seen but their dwellings and corpses.

“And as for ʿĀd, they were destroyed by a furious wind”—that is, a violent wind blowing fiercely, with a sound more tremendous than [crashing] thunder—“raging.” [That is,] it defied its keepers, according to many commentators; or it raged against ʿĀd and exceeded all bounds, which is the correct view.

“He unleashed it upon them for seven nights and eight days without respite.” That is, it was an evil omen and a dreadful affliction upon them, devastating and destroying them. “You would have seen the people lying lifeless throughout them”—that is, dead and destroyed—“as though they were hollow trunks of palm trees.” That is, they resembled hollow palm trunks whose tops had been cut off, fallen one upon another.

“Can you see any remnant of them?” This rhetorical question conveys emphatic negation.