15. Al-Hijr

By your life — this is an address to the Prophet (s) — in their drunkenness they were bewildered, hesitant.

Then the Cry, the Cry of Gabriel, seized them at sunrise.

And We made their, that is, their cities’, topmost part their nethermost, by Gabriel’s raising them [the cities] to the heaven and dropping them face down onto the earth, and We rained on them stones of baked clay, clay baked in fire.

Indeed in that, which is mentioned, there are signs, indications of God’s Oneness, for those who take note, [those who] observe and take heed.

And indeed they, that is, the cities of the people of Lot, are on a road that [still] remains, Quraysh’s route to Syria, [one] not yet effaced: so why do they not take heed from their example?

There is indeed a sign, a lesson, in that for believers.

And certainly (in has been softened, in other words [understand it as being] innahu) the dwellers in the wood, a huddle of trees near Midian — these were the people of [the prophet] Shu‘ayb — were evildoers, for denying Shu‘ayb.

So We exacted retribution from them, by destroying them through extreme heat. And certainly both of them, that is, the cities of the people of Lot and those of [the dwellers in] the wood, are upon a open road, plain [to see]: so will you not take heed from their example, O people of Mecca?

And verily the dwellers in al-Hijr — a valley between Medina and Syria — namely, [the tribe of] Thamūd, denied those who had been sent [by God], when they denied [the prophet] Sālih, as this constituted a denial of the other messengers, since they all shared the fact that they came with [the Message proclaiming] the Oneness of God.