Tafseer of The Dunes · Al-Ahqaf · 46:21
And mention, [O Muhammad], the brother of 'Aad, when he warned his people in the [region of] al-Ahqaf - and warners had already passed on before him and after him - [saying], "Do not worship except Allah. Indeed, I fear for you the punishment of a terrible day."
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 the Exalted: وَاذْكُرْ أَخَا عَادٍ إِذْ أَنْذَرَ قَوْمَهُ بِالأَحْقَافِ وَقَدْ خَلَتِ النُّذُرُ مِنْ بَيْنِ يَدَيْهِ وَمِنْ خَلْفِهِ أَلا تَعْبُدُوا إِلا اللَّهَ إِنِّي أَخَافُ عَلَيْكُمْ عَذَابَ يَوْمٍ عَظِيمٍ ("And remember the brother of ʿĀd, when he warned his people at al-Aḥqāf — and indeed, the warners had passed away before him and after him — [saying]: Worship none but Allah; truly, I fear for you the punishment of a tremendous Day") (46:21).
The Exalted, whose praise is proclaimed, says to His Prophet Muḥammad ﷺ: And remember, O Muḥammad, for your people who reject what you have brought them of the truth, Hūd, the brother of ʿĀd. For Allah sent you to them just as He sent him to ʿĀd. So instill in them the fear that there may befall them of Allah's vengeance for their disbelief that which befell them when they denied our messenger Hūd to them, when he warned his people ʿĀd at al-Aḥqāf. And al-Aḥqāf is the plural of ḥiqf, and that is of the sand which stretches out without rising so high as to become a mountain. To this al-Aʿshā alluded:
"And he spent the night by an arṭā shrub of a sand-hill (ḥiqf) that enveloped him, a fierce north wind, that leaves the face ash-grey." (1)
The people of taʾwīl (exegesis) differed over the place where this Aḥqāf is located. Some of them said: It is a mountain in Syria (al-Shām).
* Mention of who said that:
Muḥammad ibn Saʿd related to me, saying: my father related to me, saying: my uncle related to me, saying: my father related to me, on the authority of his father, on the authority of Ibn ʿAbbās: وَاذْكُرْ أَخَا عَادٍ إِذْ أَنْذَرَ قَوْمَهُ بِالأحْقَافِ ("And remember the brother of ʿĀd, when he warned his people at al-Aḥqāf"), he said: al-Aḥqāf is a mountain in Syria.
It was related to me on the authority of al-Ḥusayn, he said: I heard Abū Muʿādh saying: ʿUbayd informed us, he said: I heard al-Ḍaḥḥāk saying concerning His word: إِذْ أَنْذَرَ قَوْمَهُ بِالأحْقَافِ ("when he warned his people at al-Aḥqāf"): a mountain called al-Aḥqāf.
And others said: Rather, it is a valley between Oman and Mahra.
* Mention of who said that:
Muḥammad ibn Saʿd related to me, saying: my father related to me, saying: my uncle related to me, saying: my father related to me, on the authority of his father, on the authority of Ibn ʿAbbās: وَاذْكُرْ أَخَا عَادٍ إِذْ أَنْذَرَ قَوْمَهُ بِالأحْقَافِ ("And remember the brother of ʿĀd, when he warned his people at al-Aḥqāf"), he said: and he said: the Aḥqāf at which Hūd warned his people is a valley between Oman and Mahra.
Ibn Ḥumayd related to us, saying: Salama related to us, on the authority of Ibn Isḥāq, he said: The dwelling-places of ʿĀd and their community, when Allah sent Hūd to them, were al-Aḥqāf: the sand which stretches from Oman to Ḥaḍramawt, and all of Yemen. And alongside that they had spread over the whole earth; they subdued its inhabitants through the abundance of the strength that Allah had given them.
And others said: It is a land (region).
* Mention of who said that:
Ibn Bashshār related to us, saying: ʿAbd al-Raḥmān related to us, saying: Sufyān related to us, on the authority of Manṣūr, on the authority of Mujāhid, he said: al-Aḥqāf is the land.
Muḥammad ibn ʿAmr related to me, saying: Abū ʿĀṣim related to us, saying: ʿĪsā related to us, on the authority of Ibn Abī Najīḥ, on the authority of Mujāhid: إِذْ أَنْذَرَ قَوْمَهُ بِالأحْقَافِ ("when he warned his people at al-Aḥqāf"), he said: ḥishāf or a word resembling it. Abū Mūsā said: they say mustaḥshif.
Al-Ḥārith related to me, saying: al-Ḥasan related to us, saying: Warqāʾ related to us — both — on the authority of Ibn Abī Najīḥ, on the authority of Mujāhid: إِذْ أَنْذَرَ قَوْمَهُ بِالأحْقَافِ ("when he warned his people at al-Aḥqāf"): ḥishāf of Ḥismā.
And others said: They are sand-hills overlooking the sea at al-Shiḥr.
* Mention of who said that:
Bishr related to us, saying: Yazīd related to us, saying: Saʿīd related to us, on the authority of Qatāda, concerning His word: وَاذْكُرْ أَخَا عَادٍ إِذْ أَنْذَرَ قَوْمَهُ بِالأحْقَافِ ("And remember the brother of ʿĀd, when he warned his people at al-Aḥqāf"): We were told that ʿĀd was a tribe in Yemen, people of the sand, who overlooked the sea, in a land called al-Shiḥr.
Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Aʿlā related to us, saying: Ibn Thawr related to us, on the authority of Maʿmar, on the authority of Qatāda, concerning His word: وَاذْكُرْ أَخَا عَادٍ إِذْ أَنْذَرَ قَوْمَهُ بِالأحْقَافِ ("And remember the brother of ʿĀd, when he warned his people at al-Aḥqāf"), he said: It has reached us that they were in a land called al-Shiḥr, overlooking the sea, and they were people of the sand.
Yūnus related to me, saying: Ibn Wahb informed us, saying: ʿAmr ibn al-Ḥārith informed us, on the authority of Saʿīd ibn Abī Hilāl, on the authority of ʿAmr ibn ʿAbd Allāh, on the authority of Qatāda, that he said: The dwelling-places of ʿĀd were at al-Shiḥr.
And the most correct ruling on this is to say: Allah, the Blessed and Exalted, has informed [us] that their brother Hūd warned ʿĀd at al-Aḥqāf, and al-Aḥqāf is what I have described of the extended, rising sand-hills, as al-ʿAjjāj said:
"He spent the night by an arṭā shrub of a sand-hill (ḥiqf), curved." (2)
And as Yūnus related to me, saying: Ibn Wahb informed us, saying: Ibn Zayd said concerning His word: وَاذْكُرْ أَخَا عَادٍ إِذْ أَنْذَرَ قَوْمَهُ بِالأحْقَافِ ("And remember the brother of ʿĀd, when he warned his people at al-Aḥqāf"), he said: al-Aḥqāf is the sand which has the form of a mountain; the Arabs call it ḥiqf, and it is only aḥqāf when it is of sand. He said: And the brother of ʿĀd is Hūd. And it is possible that it was a mountain in Syria. And it is possible that it was a valley between Oman and Ḥaḍramawt. And it is possible that it was al-Shiḥr. There is in the knowledge of it no fulfillment of an obligation, nor in the ignorance of it the neglect of anything obligatory. And wherever it was, its characteristic is what we have described: that they were a people whose dwelling-places were the high, extended sand-hills.
And His word: وَقَدْ خَلَتِ النُّذُرُ مِنْ بَيْنِ يَدَيْهِ وَمِنْ خَلْفِهِ أَلا تَعْبُدُوا إِلا اللَّهَ ("…and indeed, the warners had passed away before him and after him: Worship none but Allah"). The Exalted, whose praise is proclaimed, says: And indeed, the messengers had already passed away with the warning to their communities — مِنْ بَيْنِ يَدَيْهِ ("before him") means: before Hūd, and وَمِنْ خَلْفِهِ ("and after him") means: and after Hūd. And it has been mentioned that in the recitation of ʿAbd Allāh it reads: وَقَدْ خَلَتِ النُّذُرُ مِنْ بَيْنِ يَدَيْهِ وَمِنْ بَعْدِهِ ("and indeed, the warners had passed away before him and after him"). أَلا تَعْبُدُوا إِلا اللَّهَ ("Worship none but Allah") — He says: do not associate anything as a partner with Allah in your worship of Him, but render the worship purely to Him and devote the godhood exclusively to Him; truly, there is no god but Him. And they were, according to what has been mentioned, people of idols which they worshipped besides Allah.
And in accordance with what we have said concerning this, the people of taʾwīl have spoken.
* Mention of who said that:
It was related to me on the authority of al-Ḥusayn, he said: I heard Abū Muʿādh saying: ʿUbayd informed us, he said: I heard al-Ḍaḥḥāk saying concerning His word: وَقَدْ خَلَتِ النُّذُرُ مِنْ بَيْنِ يَدَيْهِ وَمِنْ خَلْفِهِ أَلا تَعْبُدُوا إِلا اللَّهَ ("and indeed, the warners had passed away before him and after him: Worship none but Allah"), he said: Allah never sends a messenger except with the command that Allah be worshipped.
And His word: إِنِّي أَخَافُ عَلَيْكُمْ عَذَابَ يَوْمٍ عَظِيمٍ ("Truly, I fear for you the punishment of a tremendous Day"). The Exalted, whose praise is proclaimed, says, informing about the saying of Hūd to his people: Truly, I fear for you, O people, because of your worship of others than Allah, the punishment of Allah on a tremendous Day — and that is a Day whose terror is tremendous, namely the Day of Resurrection.
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The footnotes:
(1) The verse is by Aʿshā Banī Qays ibn Thaʿlaba (his dīwān, Cairo edition, 295), and in his transmission it has "yalūdhu" in place of "fa-bāta": from a poem in which he praises Iyās ibn Qabīṣa al-Ṭāʾī, or Qays ibn Maʿdīkarib. The pronoun in "fa-bāta" refers back to the wild bull to which he compared his she-camel in preceding verses. And al-arṭā is a great tree that grows in the sand; its singular is arṭāʾa. [The ḥiqf is] what is curved and bent, and its plural is aḥqāf. That is the point of the evidentiary citation in the verse. And al-kharīq is the fiercely blowing wind. And al-shamāl is a cold wind that blows from the direction of Syria. He says: this bull takes refuge by an arṭā shrub in a bend of the sand, while around him rages a wild north wind, that leaves his face dusty and dark.
(2) I have not found the verse in the printed dīwān of al-ʿAjjāj. What is in (al-Lisān: ḥaqf) is: and iḥqawqafa al-raml: when it became long and curved. And iḥqawqafa al-hilāl: it [the crescent moon] curved. And everything that becomes long and curves has curved (iḥqawqafa), like the back of the camel, and the form of the moon. Al-ʿAjjāj said:
"Going on, shaped by the exhaustion of heavy travelling, the revolution of the nights, advancing period after period, * the paleness of the crescent, until it curved *"
And the author [Ṭabarī] adduced this verse as evidence that al-Aḥqāf is the extended, rising sand-hills, as al-ʿAjjāj said: "He spent the night… etc." And it is originally derived from the testimonies of Abū ʿUbayda in Majāz al-Qurʾān (folio 222), where he said: "when he warned his people at al-Aḥqāf": the aḥqāf of the sand. Al-ʿAjjāj said… the verse. I [the annotator] say: I am not certain of the soundness of this testimony, for most of its wording belongs to the wording of the preceding testimony, and perhaps it became confused in the mouths of the transmitters and got mixed up with the preceding [verse].
