Read · 11 min · Optional
What the classical commentators say about these twelve ayat. Take this one if you want to go deeper.
Two stories in five units: Salih and the people of Thamud (ayat 73–79), then Lut and his people (ayat 80–84).
Ayah 73 — The call and the sign
Allah sent Salih to his people, Thamud. His first words are the call Nuh and Hud made before him: worship Allah, you have no god other than Him. Then he shows them a sign, the she-camel of Allah, and asks them to leave her alone.
Source summary: Ibn Kathir says Thamud came after ʿAd and lived “between the area of the Hijaz (Western Arabia) and Ash-Sham (Greater Syria)”. On the call he says: “All Allah’s Messengers called to the worship of Allah alone without partners.” He compares 21:25 and 16:36.
Source summary: On “clear evidence”, Ibn Kathir says “a miracle has come to you from Allah testifying to the truth of what I came to you with”. Al-Jalalayn: a clear proof of Salih’s truthfulness.
Paraphrase from the Arabic: Al-Qurtubi says that calling her “the she-camel of Allah” joins a creature to its Creator, and that this carries honour and distinction. On “leave her to eat within Allah’s land” he says: her food and her care are not your burden. He also cites 26:155: she has her turn to drink, and they have theirs.
Source summary: How did she come? The Qur’an calls her the she-camel of Allah and a sign, and does not say how she came. All four commentators report that she came out of a rock: al-Qurtubi says so in his own words, al-Jalalayn that they had asked Salih to bring her out of a rock they chose, al-Tabari in his explanation of the ayah, and Ibn Kathir as a story.
Facilitator guidance
For the facilitator: The commentators’ longer stories about the she-camel and the people around her, with names, are reports. They are not graded, and they are not on these pages. Name the place only as the hadith page does, al-Ḥijr.
Reflection: The sign asked little of them: a share of the water, and their hands off her. That little was what they would not do.
Ayat 74–76 — Favours remembered, and the arrogant and the weak
Salih reminds them that Allah made them successors after ʿAd, and gave them the skill to build palaces on the plains and carve homes out of the mountains. Remember the favours of Allah, he says. Then the arrogant leaders question the believers among the weak, and the two sides answer.
Source summary: Al-Jalalayn pictures the two kinds of home: “castles in its plains in which you lodge during summer” and “hewing its mountains into houses in which you lodge during winter”.
Paraphrase from the Arabic: Al-Tabari reports from al-Suddi that they hollowed out houses in the mountains. Al-Qurtubi says they took their houses in the mountains because they lived so long: roofs and buildings wore out before their lives ended.
Paraphrase from the Arabic: On “remember the favors of Allah”, al-Qurtubi says this shows that favours are given to people who do not believe as well. On “do not commit abuse on the earth”, al-Tabari reports Qatadah: do not go about in the land spreading corruption.
Paraphrase from the Arabic: Who were “those who were oppressed”? Al-Tabari: the people of humble means among Salih’s followers, not the people of rank and power. The leaders, al-Jalalayn says, “disdained belief in him”.
Paraphrase from the Arabic: On ayah 76, al-Tabari gives the arrogant leaders’ meaning: what you affirm about Salih being a prophet, we deny; we neither affirm it nor accept it.
Optional source note — successors, and the believers’ answer
Paraphrase from the Arabic: Al-Tabari explains the successors: you came after ʿAd in the land, once they had been destroyed. Al-Jalalayn’s English has “vicegerents”; his Arabic word is the one Saheeh International gives as “successors”.
Source summary: Al-Jalalayn’s English starts the believers’ answer with “Yes!”, a word he adds to show that they answer the question and then say more.
Paraphrase from the Arabic: Al-Qurtubi notes that “to those who believed among them” explains “to those who were oppressed”: the believers were among the ones held weak.
Facilitator guidance
For the facilitator: Ibn Kathir has no comment on ayat 74–76, so this unit does not cite him. Talk about the carved homes as skill and favour, the way the ayah does. This passage is not a lesson on how big a house should be.
Reflection: Look at the two answers. The leaders asked, “Do you [actually] know that Salih is sent from his Lord?” The believers did not argue about Salih. They said they believe in what he was sent with. The arrogant replied, “in that which you have believed”, and would not say “sent”. This is our own reading of the two ayat, not one of the four commentators’.
Ayat 77–79 — The deed, the end, and Salih’s last word
They hamstrung the she-camel, defied their Lord’s command, and dared Salih to bring what he warned of. The earthquake seized them. Salih turned away and said: I conveyed my Lord’s message to you and advised you, but you do not like advisors.
Source summary: One man struck, and the people stood behind him. Al-Jalalayn says one man “hamstrung her by their command”. Ibn Kathir passes on a report from Qatadah, who said he was told it: the man chosen to kill her went to all of them, even the women and children, and found them agreed. From 91:14 and 17:59 he concludes that “the entire tribe shared in agreeing to this crime”; the people he means are, in his own words, the disbelievers of Thamud. It is a report of agreement, not of silence.
Paraphrase from the Arabic: On “were insolent toward the command of their Lord”, al-Tabari reports Mujahid: they rose above the truth and went far in falsehood. “Bring us what you promise us” was, he says, hurrying the punishment on.
Paraphrase from the Arabic: Saheeh International has “the earthquake”. The commentators read the word, al-rajfah, three ways. Al-Qurtubi: a violent earthquake, and it is also said a violent cry. Al-Tabari: the cry that shook them to their death, as Mujahid and al-Suddi said; Surah Hud calls it “the shriek” (11:67). Al-Jalalayn joins the two: “a violent earthquake and a cry from the heaven”, and Ibn Kathir does the same.
Paraphrase from the Arabic: When did Salih say ayah 79? The four differ. Ibn Kathir: after they died, as a rebuke while they hear it. He compares the Prophet ﷺ speaking to the dead at Badr (Sahih al-Bukhari 1370). Al-Tabari: before the end, as Salih left their land. Al-Qurtubi: it could be either, but before is more likely, because “you do not like advisors” speaks of people still alive. Al-Jalalayn says only that he left them.
Paraphrase from the Arabic: On “you do not like advisors”, al-Tabari says: you do not love those who advise you for Allah’s sake and hold you back from your own desires.
Optional source note — two words: “hamstrung” and “fallen prone”
Paraphrase from the Arabic: Al-Qurtubi explains ʿaqarū: to cut a leg so the animal falls. Because the cut usually leads to the slaughter, the word came to be used for the killing itself.
Paraphrase from the Arabic: On jāthimīn, “fallen prone”, al-Tabari says the Arabs use the word for someone down on his knees, and that they did not move because no life was left in them. Al-Qurtubi: stuck to the ground on their knees and faces, the way a bird crouches.
Facilitator guidance
For the facilitator: Keep the earthquake with the text and its tafsir. Do not tie it to any earthquake or disaster in the news. The three days before the end, and the names in the commentators’ stories, are reports and are not on these pages. The Badr narration was on session 07’s hadith page in another telling (Sahih al-Bukhari 3976).
Reflection: One hand did it, and the people who wanted it stood behind him. Salih’s last word is not about the camel. It is about advice they did not want.
Ayat 80–82 — What Lut named, and his people’s only answer
Lut told his people that they did something no one in the worlds had done before them: men approached men with desire instead of women. He called them a transgressing people. Their only answer was to drive out Lut and those with him, because “they are men who keep themselves pure”.
Paraphrase from the Arabic: This story does not open like the one before it. Saheeh International supplies “We had sent” for the sense. Al-Tabari reads the ayah that way, and allows a second reading, “And mention Lot”, as al-Jalalayn has it; Ibn Kathir and al-Qurtubi give both. Either way the account moves straight into Lut’s question to his people.
Source summary: Ibn Kathir says Lut was the nephew of Ibrahim. “Lut had believed in Ibrahim and migrated with him to the Sham area”, and Allah sent him “to the people of Sadum (Sodom) and the surrounding villages”. Elsewhere the Qur’an calls Lut “their brother” (26:161), as this surah calls Salih Thamud’s; this ayah does not use the word.
Source summary: The four explain the “immorality” in the ayat’s own terms: men approaching men instead of women. Al-Jalalayn says no one before them had done it, “humans or jinn”. Ibn Kathir says they left the women Allah created for them, and “placed things in their improper places”.
Source summary: On “a transgressing people”, al-Jalalayn says: “transgressing the bounds going from what is lawful to what is unlawful”. Al-Tabari, in his Arabic: you do what Allah forbade you.
Source summary: Their answer in ayah 82 was meant as an insult. Qatadah, in Ibn Kathir: “They shamed them (Lut and the believers) with what is not a shame at all.” Al-Tabari and al-Qurtubi report the same from him. Al-Tabari explains “keep themselves pure”: they keep clear of what we do. Al-Suddi, in al-Tabari: they hold back.
Optional source note — a statement or a question
Paraphrase from the Arabic: Ayah 81 opens with innakum, “Indeed, you”, a statement. Al-Qurtubi says this is how Nafiʿ and Hafs read it, and Hafs is the reading of the Arabic on this site. Others read a-innakum, a question meant as a rebuke. Al-Jalalayn gives both.
Facilitator guidance
For the facilitator: These pages use Saheeh International’s words for ayat 80–81 and the commentators’ own terms, and add nothing. There is no mockery here and nothing about the present day. A question about rulings goes to a qualified scholar. The Facilitator guide has a care note for this unit.
Reflection: They had no answer to what Lut said, so they turned on the people who kept themselves clean.
Ayat 83–84 — The rescue, his wife, and the rain
Allah saved Lut and his family, except his wife: she was of those who remained. Then He rained a rain of stones on the rest. “Then see how was the end of the criminals.”
Source summary: Ibn Kathir says Allah saved Lut and his family, “for only his household believed in him”, and compares 51:35–36. His wife “did not believe, remaining on the religion of her people”, and told them who came to visit Lut.
Paraphrase from the Arabic: The commentators read al-ghābirīn, “those who remained”, in four ways. Ibn Kathir: those who stayed behind, his preferred sense. Al-Jalalayn: those who remained in the punishment, and al-Qurtubi reports this from Ibn ʿAbbas and Qatadah. Al-Tabari, in his own reading: those whose life had been long, who had grown old, and then perished with the rest. Al-Zajjaj, in al-Qurtubi: those absent from the rescue. Al-Qurtubi adds that the word can mean both to remain and to pass away.
Source summary: Ibn Kathir explains the rain by 11:82–83, stones of baked clay. Al-Jalalayn: “the stones of baked clay”.
Paraphrase from the Arabic: On “see how was the end”, Ibn Kathir: “See, O Muhammad, the end of those who dared to disobey Allah and reject His Messengers.” Al-Tabari says the same to the Prophet ﷺ about those of his own people who denied him, and adds: if they do not repent.
Facilitator guidance
For the facilitator: Where the Qur’an elsewhere says the wives of Nuh and Lut betrayed their husbands (66:10), all four commentators say it was in faith, never in chastity. Keep the rain with the text and its tafsir, never with any disaster in the news. The commentators’ stories of how the towns were destroyed are reports and are not on these pages. The abridged English of Ibn Kathir at ayah 83 reverses him on al-ghābirīn, making “destroyed” the clearer sense; his Arabic calls that a reading by consequence, and this page follows the Arabic.
Reflection: The story ends with a look outward. Al-Tabari leaves a door open: if they do not repent.
Sources and further reading
- Tafsir Ibn Kathir (English, abridged) — Five entries: 7:73–78, 7:79, 7:80–81, 7:82 and 7:83–84. The full Arabic text was read as well, for every ayah. on 7:73–78 ↗ · on 7:79 ↗ · on 7:80–81 ↗ · on 7:82 ↗ · on 7:83–84 ↗ · Arabic, from 7:73 ↗
- Tafsir al-Jalalayn (English, trans. Feras Hamza) — Word-level glosses on every ayah; the Arabic text was read for every ayah too. on 7:73 ↗ · 74 ↗ · 75 ↗ · 77 ↗ · 78 ↗ · 80 ↗ · 81 ↗ · 83 ↗ · 84 ↗
- Tafsir al-Tabari (Arabic) — Read for every ayah. on 7:73 ↗ · 75 ↗ · 78 ↗ · 79 ↗ · 80 ↗ · 82 ↗ · 83 ↗ · 84 ↗
- Tafsir al-Qurtubi (Arabic) — Read for every ayah. on 7:73 ↗ · 74 ↗ · 77 ↗ · 78 ↗ · 79 ↗ · 81 ↗ · 83 ↗
- Sahih al-Bukhari 1370 — The Prophet ﷺ at Badr, which Ibn Kathir compares with ayah 79. on Sunnah.com ↗
- Quranic Arabic Corpus — Roots and counts on the Arabic words page. 7:73 word by word ↗