186 – ʿAbd Allah narrated to us; he said: Muhammad b. ʿAbbad b. Musa related to us; he said: Hammad b. Usamah narrated to us, from Bashir b. ʿUqbah al-Naji; he said: Nadrah al-ʿAbdi told us, saying that a man from the earliest generation related:

⦗125⦘ “The people of Shuʿayb used to labor on the rocky ground and the highland above it, yet whenever they did so their livelihood remained straitened. Then one of their kings came into worldly wealth, whereupon he suspended the prescribed punishment, and they went so far as to befriend one another over wine, drinking it openly in broad daylight at their gatherings.

At that point Allah, blessed and exalted, expanded their provision, until one of them remarked, ‘Had we set a price on it, we would have abandoned it long ago.’

When Allah, exalted is He, willed to punish them, He sent upon them an intense heat: no vegetation, no shade, nothing afforded them benefit. They set out seeking relief and coolness. One of them entered a cloud-canopy, found it pleasantly cool, and cried out among the people, ‘Coolness! Coolness!’ When they had all gathered beneath it, Allah hurled it down upon them as punishment. That is the meaning of His statement: ‘So the punishment of the Day of the Canopy seized them’ (al-Shuʿarāʾ 26:189).”