11. Hud

they said ‘O Lot truly we are messengers of your Lord. They shall not reach you with any harm so travel with your family during a part of the night and let not one of you turn round lest they see the terrible predicament that will befall them except for your wife read illā imra’atuka in the nominative as a substitute for ahadun; a variant reading has illā imra’ataka in the accusative as her being an exception among his ‘family’ in other words do no take her along when you travel lo! she shall be smitten by that which smites them it is said that he did not take her along with him; it is also said that she did set out with them and turned round and so exclaimed ‘Woe is my people!’ at which point a stone struck her and killed her. When he Lot asked them about the time of their destruction they replied Truly their tryst is for the morning and when he said ‘I want it to be sooner’ they said is the morning not nigh enough?’

So when Our command for their destruction came to pass We made their uppermost that is their cities the nethermost — when Gabriel raised them to the sky and dropped them upside down to the earth and We rained upon them stones of baked clay clay baked in fire one after another

marked each one of them with the name of the person it would strike with your Lord ‘inda rabbik is an adverbial qualifier for these stones and they the stones — or their lands — are not far from the evildoers that is from the people of Mecca.

And We sent to Midian their brother Shu‘ayb. He said ‘O my people worship God! affirm His Oneness. You have no god other than He. And diminish not the measure or the weight. I see you in prosperity enjoying a grace which precludes any need for stinting people; and I fear for you should you not believe the chastisement of a besetting day besetting you destroying you the attribution of this term ‘besetting’ to ‘a day’ as opposed to ‘the chastisement’ is figurative for it the chastisement will take place thereupon.

O my people give full measure and weight fulfil the due of both of these in justice and do not defraud people in respect of their goods do not diminish anything of their due and do not be degenerate in the land working corruption by killing or otherwise lā ta‘thaū derives from ‘athiya meaning afsada ‘he corrupted’; mufsidīn ‘working corruption’ is a circumstantial qualifier reiterating the import of the term operating it ta‘thaū ‘do not be degenerate’.

The remainder which is from God that provision of His which remains for you after you have given full measure and weight is better for you than fraud if you are believers; and I am not a guardian over you’ a watcher that I should requite you for your deeds I was sent only as a warner.

They said to him mockingly ‘O Shu‘ayb does your way of prayer command you with the obligation to make sure that we should leave what our fathers used to worship of idols or that we should cease to do as we will with our goods? meaning that such a command is an absurdity which no person calling to good would commend. You are indeed the forbearing the right-guided’ they said this in mockery.

He said ‘O my people have you considered that I might be acting upon a clear proof from my Lord and that He has provided me with fair wholesome sustenance from Him? should I then blemish it with what is unlawful in the way of fraud or stinting? And I do not desire to be inconsistent and then partake in what I forbid you thus committing the same. I desire only to set things right in your case by way of enjoining justice so far as I am able. My success my ability to do this successfully and to enjoin other acts of obedience is only with God. In Him I trust and to Him I turn I return repentant.

And O my people let not the breach with me the dispute you have with me shiqāqī ‘the breach with me’ is the subject of the verb yajrimannakum ‘make you deserve’ in which the suffixed pronoun -kum ‘you’ constitutes the first direct object the second being what follows make you deserve earn you as punishment that there befall you the like of what befell the people of Noah or the people of Hūd or the people of Sālih in the way of chastisement; and the people of Lot that is their dwelling-places or the era in which they were destroyed are not far away from you so take heed of this.

And ask forgiveness of your Lord then repent to Him. Truly my Lord is Merciful to believers Affectionate’ loving towards them.