Tafseer of Hud · Hud · 11:66
So when Our command came, We saved Salih and those who believed with him, by mercy from Us, and [saved them] from the disgrace of that day. Indeed, it is your Lord who is the Powerful, the Exalted in Might.
Important: The Arabic source text is always authoritative. This translation is a study aid and has not been verified by scholars — do not use it as a basis for religious proof or for deriving rulings (ahkam). When in doubt, always consult the Arabic text and a qualified scholar.
The explanation of the words of Allah the Exalted: فَلَمَّا جَاءَ أَمْرُنَا نَجَّيْنَا صَالِحًا وَالَّذِينَ آمَنُوا مَعَهُ بِرَحْمَةٍ مِنَّا وَمِنْ خِزْيِ يَوْمِئِذٍ إِنَّ رَبَّكَ هُوَ الْقَوِيُّ الْعَزِيزُ (66)
Abū Jaʿfar said: Allah the Exalted says here: When Our punishment came down upon Thamūd, We saved Ṣāliḥ and those who believed in Allah together with him — through a mercy and favor from Allah. وَمِنْ خِزْيِ يَوْمِئِذٍ — that is to say: We saved them from the disgrace and humiliation of that day through that punishment. إِنَّ رَبَّكَ هُوَ الْقَوِيُّ — in His seizing, when He seizes a thing, He destroys it, as He destroyed Thamūd when He seized them. الْعَزِيزُ — none overcomes Him and none subdues Him; rather He overcomes and subdues everything.
In line with what we have said concerning this, the exegetes also spoke.
18289. Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Aʿlā related to us: Muḥammad ibn Thawr related to us, on the authority of Maʿmar, on the authority of Qatāda: بِرَحْمَةٍ مِنَّا وَمِنْ خِزْيِ يَوْمِئِذٍ — he said: Allah saved him through His mercy and saved him from the shame of that day.
18290. Al-Qāsim related to us: Al-Ḥusayn related to us: Ḥajjāj related to me, on the authority of Abū Bakr ibn ʿAbd Allāh, on the authority of Shahr ibn Ḥawshab, on the authority of ʿAmr ibn Khārija: We asked him: Tell us about Thamūd. He said: I will tell you the story as the Prophet ﷺ told it concerning Thamūd. Thamūd were the people of Ṣāliḥ. Allah let them live long upon the earth and prolonged their lifespan, until one of them built a dwelling of clay, but it collapsed while the man was still alive. When they saw that, they chose dwellings in the mountains, which they hewed out, cleaved, and hollowed. They lived in ample circumstances. They said: O Ṣāliḥ, pray to your Lord that He may give us a sign by which we may know that you are the messenger of Allah. Ṣāliḥ prayed to his Lord, and Allah brought forth for them the she-camel. Her drinking day was one day and their drinking day was a fixed other day. On her drinking day they let her loose at the water, milked her, and filled every vessel and every jug and every waterskin; on their own drinking day they kept her away from the water — she drank nothing of it — and they filled every vessel and every jug and every waterskin.
Allah revealed to Ṣāliḥ: your people will hamstring your she-camel! He informed them of this, and they said: We shall never do that! He said: If you yourselves do not do it, then there will soon be born among you a child who will do it. They said: What is the sign of that child? By Allah, if we find it, we will kill it! He said: It is a ruddy, blue-eyed, red-haired boy. There were in the town two powerful elders: one had a son for whom he could find no suitable marriage partner, and the other had a daughter for whom he could find no one as her equal. They came together in an assembly and one said to the other: What prevents you from marrying off your son? He said: I find no one worthy of him. The other said: My daughter is worthy of him — I will marry him to her. So he married him off to her, and from them that child was born. In the town there were also eight men who spread corruption upon the earth without any good. When Ṣāliḥ told them that a child born among them would hamstring the she-camel, they chose eight midwives from the village and added watchmen to them who went about through the village. Whenever they came upon a woman giving birth, they examined the child: if it was a boy, the midwives turned it over and examined it; if it was a girl, they turned away from it. When they found that child, the midwives raised a cry and said: This is the one whom the messenger of Allah Ṣāliḥ meant. The watchmen wanted to seize him, but his grandfathers placed themselves between them and him and said: If Ṣāliḥ wanted this, we would kill him! He became the worst child in the world; he grew in a day as much as others in a week, in a week as much as others in a month, in a month as much as others in a year. The eight who spread corruption came together — and among them were the two elders — and said: Set this boy over us, because of his rank and the eminence of his grandfathers. So they became nine. Ṣāliḥ did not sleep with them in the village; he stayed in a place of prayer called the mosque of Ṣāliḥ, where he slept by night. In the morning he would go to them and admonish and remind them, and in the evening he would depart to his place of prayer to sleep there.
Ḥajjāj said — and Ibn Jurayj said: When Ṣāliḥ told them that a boy would be born among them at whose hands would be their destruction, they said: What do you command us? He said: I command you to kill them! They killed them except for one boy. When he had grown up, they said: Had we not killed our children, each of us would now have one like this — this is the work of Ṣāliḥ! They plotted his death and said: We will depart openly as though we are going on a journey, then return in the night of such-and-such a month, lie in wait for him at his place of prayer and kill him; then the people will think that we are still on the way. They came back and hid themselves beneath a rock by his place of prayer. Allah commanded the rock and it crushed them, so that they were ground to pieces. Men who were aware of their plan came and found them ground to pieces and returned, calling out through the village: O servants of Allah, was it not enough for Ṣāliḥ that he commanded them to kill their children and that they killed them? All the villagers came together to kill the she-camel, and they all hesitated except for that tenth son.
Then the story of the Prophet ﷺ continues: they wanted to betray Ṣāliḥ and walked until they reached an underground passage on his path. Eight men hid themselves in it and said: When he passes by us, we will kill him and then fall upon his family and slaughter them in their sleep! But Allah commanded the earth and it closed in around them. They gathered and went to the she-camel, which was standing by its watering trough. The wretched boy said to one of them: Go to her and hamstring her! He went to her but recoiled from it. So he sent a second, but he too found it hard. He kept sending one man after another, but none could bring himself to it, until they walked toward her together. One stretched out his hand and struck her on both her hind legs so that she fell down felled. A man from among them went to Ṣāliḥ and said: Hasten to the she-camel — she has been hamstrung! He rushed there while the people came out to meet him and offer excuses: O prophet of Allah, only so-and-so hamstrung her — we are not at fault! He said: Look then whether you can reach her foal; if you find it, perhaps Allah will lift the punishment from you. They went searching, but when the foal saw its mother thrashing, it climbed a short mountain called al-Qāra. They wanted to seize it, but Allah commanded the mountain and it rose up toward the heaven so that no bird could reach it. Ṣāliḥ entered the village, and when the foal saw him, it wept until its tears flowed; then it bleated once loudly before Ṣāliḥ, then again, then again. Ṣāliḥ said to his people: For each bleat there is one day of respite; تَمَتَّعُوا فِي دَارِكُمْ ثَلاثَةَ أَيَّامٍ ذَلِكَ وَعْدٌ غَيْرُ مَكْذُوبٍ . The sign of the punishment is that your faces will become yellow on the first day, red on the second day, and black on the third day! On the first morning their faces were yellow as though smeared with yellow dye — small and great, men and women. At nightfall they all cried out: Listen, one day of the respite has passed! On the second morning their faces were red as though smeared with blood. They shrieked, lamented, and wept. At nightfall they all cried out: Listen, two days have passed! On the third morning their faces were black as though smeared with pitch. They all cried out: The punishment is upon you! They clothed themselves in shrouds of leather patches and anointed themselves with bitter resin. Then they threw themselves on the ground and began to roll their eyes, now looking toward the heaven and now toward the earth, not knowing from which side the punishment would come — from above out of the heaven or from beneath their feet out of the earth — in abasement and intense fear. On the morning of the fourth day a cry (ṣayḥa) struck them from the heaven with the sound of every thunderclap and the sound of every creature possessing a voice upon the earth. Their hearts were torn apart in their breasts, and in the morning they lay collapsed in their dwellings.
18291. Al-Qāsim related to us: Al-Ḥusayn related to us: Ḥajjāj related to me, on the authority of Ibn Jurayj: It was related to me that when the cry struck them, Allah destroyed all those in the east and the west of the earth except for one man who was in the sacred precinct of Allah — that sacred precinct protected him. It was asked: And who is that, O messenger of Allah? He said: Abū Righāl. The Prophet ﷺ said, when he arrived at the village of Thamūd, to his companions: Let none of you enter the village and do not drink of their water. And he pointed out to them the mountain ascent of the foal.
Ibn Jurayj said, and Mūsā ibn ʿUqba informed me, on the authority of ʿAbd Allāh ibn Dīnār, on the authority of Ibn ʿUmar: The Prophet ﷺ said, when he arrived at the village of Thamūd: Do not enter upon these punished people except weeping; if you cannot weep, then do not enter it — lest there strike you what struck them.
Ibn Jurayj said, and Jābir ibn ʿAbd Allāh said: When the Prophet ﷺ arrived at al-Ḥijr, he praised and extolled Allah and said: Know, however, do not ask your prophet ﷺ for signs; these are the people of Ṣāliḥ — they asked their prophet for a sign and Allah sent them the she-camel as a sign; she drank on her drinking day from this ravine the water and went away along another ravine, and on their drinking day they supplied themselves from her milk.
18292. Bishr related to us: Yazīd related to us: Saʿīd related to us, on the authority of Qatāda: It was related to us that the Prophet of Allah ﷺ, when he passed through the valley of Thamūd on the way to Tabūk, commanded his companions to travel on quickly, not to halt, and not to drink of their water, and informed them that it was an accursed valley. It was also related to us that the well-to-do man of the people of Ṣāliḥ would supply the needy among them with shrouds, and that a man would dig out a grave for himself and his household — this until the appointed term of the prophet Ṣāliḥ. Those who saw them at the roads, the squares, and in the houses described them, among whom were young people and old men, whom Allah had caused to remain as a lesson and a sign.
18293. Ismāʿīl ibn al-Mutawakkil al-Ashjaʿī from Ḥimṣ related to us: Muḥammad ibn Kathīr related to us: ʿAbd Allāh ibn Wāqid related to us, on the authority of ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿUthmān ibn Khuthaym, who said: Abū l-Ṭufayl related to us: When the Prophet ﷺ undertook the expedition to Tabūk, he halted at al-Ḥijr and said: O people, do not ask your prophet ﷺ for signs; these are the people of Ṣāliḥ — they asked their prophet for a sign and Allah sent them the she-camel as a sign. On her drinking day she entered upon them through this ravine, drank their water, and went away through that other ravine; on their drinking day they supplied themselves from her milk in the same quantity as they had previously taken of water. But they defied the command of their Lord and hamstrung her. Allah promised them the punishment after three days, and it was a promise of Allah that was not belied. Allah destroyed all those of them in the east and the west of the earth except for one man who was in the sacred precinct of Allah — that sacred precinct protected him. They asked: And who is that man, O messenger of Allah? He said: Abū Righāl.