183 – ʿAbd Allah related to us: al-Ḥusayn b. ʿAmr told me; he said: my father narrated to us; he said: Asbāṭ b. Naṣr narrated to us, from al-Suddī, who said:

“ashāb al-aykah (the Companions of the Thicket) — the aykah is a dense woodland to whose people Allah sent Shuʿayb, but they denied him. Concerning His words, ‘So the punishment of the Day of the Canopy seized them’ (al-Shuʿarāʾ 189), he said: Allah opened for them a gate among the gates of Hell, and a heat engulfed them that they could not endure, so they pleaded for water … upon them. While they were in that state, a cloud appeared over them containing a cool, pleasant breeze. When they felt ⦗124⦘ its coolness and fragrance, they shouted, ‘Make for the canopy!’ They hurried toward it, seeking relief beneath it, abandoning everything else they were doing. Once they had all assembled beneath it, it closed in on them with the punishment. That is the meaning of His saying, ‘So the punishment of the Day of the Canopy seized them; indeed, it was the punishment of a momentous day’ (al-Shuʿarāʾ 189).”