to you. Whoever finds good, let him praise Allah, and whoever finds evil, let him blame no one but himself.’” They also affirm what Allah Most High says:

“Whatever good befalls you is from Allah, and whatever evil befalls you is from yourself.”

Ibn al-Qayyim—may Allah have mercy on him—said:

In this surah, Allah, glorified be He, mentioned Thamūd alone among the nations that rejected their messengers. Shaykh al-Islām Abū al-Abbās Taqī al-Dīn Ibn Taymiyyah said:

This—and Allah knows best—is an instance of drawing attention to the greater through the lesser. For none of the nations that rejected their messengers was less sinful or more lightly punished than they were (*), since He did not mention concerning them the sins He mentioned concerning ‘Ād, Midian, the people of Lot, and others. Thus, when He mentioned them alongside ‘Ād, He said:

“As for ‘Ād, they were arrogant in the land without right and said, ‘Who is mightier than us in strength?’ Did they not see that Allah, who created them, was mightier than them in strength? Yet they continued to reject Our signs.”

“As for Thamūd, We guided them, but they preferred blindness to guidance.”

Likewise, when He mentions them alongside the nations that rejected their messengers, He does not attribute to them the tyranny, arrogance, and evil deeds that He attributes to those others, such as sodomy, giving short measure and weight, and spreading corruption in the land, as in Surahs Hūd and al-Shu‘arā’ and elsewhere. Thus, besides associating partners with Allah, the people of Lot committed indecencies that