“He said, ‘These are my daughters, if you must act.’ By your life, they were wandering blindly in their intoxication. Then the blast seized them at sunrise. We turned the city upside down and rained upon them stones of baked clay. Surely in this are signs for those who discern. It lies along an established road. Surely in this is a sign for the believers.”
In the intense distress that had befallen him, Lot said to them, “These are my daughters, if you must act.” Yet they paid no heed to his words. Therefore, Allah said to His Messenger Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him, “By your life, they were wandering blindly in their intoxication.” This intoxication was their infatuation with indecency, on account of which they heeded neither rebuke nor blame.
When the messengers revealed their true identity to him, Lot’s distress and anguish subsided. He obeyed his Lord’s command and set out with his family by night, and they were saved. As for the people of the town, “the blast seized them at sunrise”—that is, when the sun rose, at a time when the punishment would be most severe for them. “We turned the city upside down”—that is, We overturned their city upon them—“and rained upon them stones of baked clay,” which pursued any of them who had ventured away from the town.
“Surely in this are signs for those who discern”—that is, those who contemplate and reflect, possessing sound thought, deliberation, and insight by which they understand the lesson intended: those who dare to disobey Allah—especially by committing this grave obscenity—will be punished by Allah with the most dreadful punishments, just as they dared to commit the most heinous evil deeds.
“It lies”—that is, the city of Lot’s people—“along an established road” traveled by wayfarers and known to everyone who frequents those lands. “Surely in this is a sign for the believers.”
Among the lessons in this account is Allah Most High’s care for His close friend Abraham. Lot, peace be upon him, was one of Abraham’s followers and among those who believed in him; thus, he was like a disciple of his. When Allah willed to destroy Lot’s people after they had deserved it, He commanded His messengers to pass by Abraham, peace be upon him, so that they might give him glad tidings of a son and inform him of the mission for which they had been sent. Abraham even disputed with them concerning the people’s destruction until they persuaded him, whereupon his heart was set at ease.
The same was true of Lot, peace be upon him. Since they were the people of his homeland, he might have felt tenderness and compassion for them. Allah therefore ordained circumstances that intensified his fury and anger toward them, until he became impatient for their destruction when he was told, “Indeed, their appointed time is the morning. Is not the morning near?”
Another lesson is that when Allah Most High wills to destroy a town, its people’s evil and transgression [increase]. Once these reach their limit, He inflicts upon them the punishments they deserve.