prophets are very similar. They wereall raised up among their own
people, to warn their people against their sinful ways and warn of
Allah 's pending punishment. Theirmessage was the same, to worship
Allah and heed the words of His prophet. The prophets emphasized that
they had nothing to gain from their people; that they were merely
conveying Allah's message.And all the prophets were deeply
compassionate men, who became frustrated that so few heeded their
words, but who never stopped trying to convey Allah's message,until
the people's deeds exceeded limits set by Allah.�
The response to each prophet's message was also very similar. A very
small number of his people would heed his message and follow his
advice. But most of his community would refuse to listen. They would
say that their prophet was crazy. They would laugh athim, scorn his
followers, and threaten him. They would challenge him to bring on the
punishment with which he was always threatening them. But only Allah
knew when the punishment would strike and what it would be. When the
punishment did strike, the prophet and his believers would be saved,
and all the nonbelievers would be destroyed.
The type of punishment differed: it was a great flood at the time of
Nuh ( Peace be upon him ) and a shower of brimstones among the people
of Lut ( Peace be upon him ). In this issue we will see whathappened
to the people ofthe prophet Hud ( Peace beupon him ) and the people of
the prophet Salih ( Peace be upon him ). Thesetwo prophets are not
mentioned in the Bible.
Hud (pronounced "who'd")( Peace be upon him ) was a member of the 'Ad
(rhymes with "rod") tribe, a powerful Arab tribe which lived in the
southern Arabian peninsula. (Muhajir, A.M.R. 1975. Lessons from the
Stories of the Quran , Sh. Muhammed Ashraf, Lahore, Pakistan, pp
45-46). They were descendants of Nuh ( Peace be upon him ). They were
tall in stature and were skilful builders. They were all
idol-worshippers. The prophet Hud ( Peace be upon him ) was raised up
to bring them back to the worship of Allah.
Hud's ( Peace be upon him ) message and his people'sreaction to it
followed the usual pattern. They called him an idiot and a liar. He
implored them to listen to him, but they rejected him.And so Allah
sent down Histerrible penalty, from which only Hud ( Peace be upon him
) and his followers were saved. The penalty in this case was a great
wind which destroyed everything in itspath. It raged for seven nights
and eight days, and when it had passed, nothing could be seen but the
ruins of the houses. It picked the people up and flung them to the
ground.
Nothing and nobody couldwithstand its force. Thus was the tribe of Ad,
a powerful nation of skilful and intelligent people, destroyed because
it would not listen to its prophet.
The tribe of Thamud existed about 200 years after the tribe of 'Ad.
They lived in an area which is now near the border between Syria and
Arabia. They carved their homes out of rocks. Some of those rock
habitations, called asalib, are still in existence (Muhajir, pp
49-50). They are often mentioned in the Qur'an inconjunction with the
tribe of Ad. The prophet who was sent to them was named Salih ( Peace
be upon him ).�
Salih ( Peace be upon him ),too, had only a very small band of
followers. The remaining townspeople were very much against Salih (
Peace be upon him ) and his teachings. A group of them were even
plotting to secretly do away with Salih ( Peace be upon him ), but
that was not part of Allah's plan so the plot failed.
A sign of Salih's ( Peace be upon him ) prophethood was sent by Allah
to the people of Thamud in the form of a she-camel. Salih ( Peace be
upon him ) instructed the people of Thamud to allow the camel to
pasture freely and to have its share of water. It was when they killed
the camel that they overstepped the limits placed by Allah, and their
destruction was inevitable.Salih ( Peace be upon him ) foretold that
within three days of having slain the camel disaster would come upon
them. It is not clear exactly what the disaster was. Some sort of
earthquake activity and some storms are mentioned. But the result was
the total destruction of the people of Thamud, with the exception of
Salih( Peace be upon him ) and his followers.
Thus we see again in the stories of these two prophets, Hud ( Peace be
upon him ) and Salih ( Peace be upon him ), how two powerful nations
were totally destroyed, because they did not heed Allah's warning.
Only the faithful were saved.�
You can read about Hud ( Peace be upon Him ) in theQur'an, Sura
7:65-72, Sura 11: 50-60, Sura 26:123-140, Sura 41:15-16, Sura
46:21-26, Sura 51:41-42, Sura 54:18-21, Sura 69:6-8, andSura 89:6-8.
You can read about Salih (Peace be upon Him ) in the Qur'an, Sura
7:73-79,...:->
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