Overall meaning : And to the tribe of Thamud, the Almighty states, He sent their brother Salih. 'My people,’ he said to them, 'worship Allah alone faithfully and sincerely, for you have no other god worthy of worship other than Him. It is He who brought you into being from the earth by creating your father Adam from it and made you its inhabitants. Ask Him, therefore, to forgive you your sins and sincerely turn to Him in penitence, for my Lord is ever near those who show true repentance, ever responsive to their prayers.’
'Salih,’ they said, 'great were the hopes we placed in you before this statement of yours, as we were hoping you would hold a position of considerable authority amongst us. Would you now forbid us to worship the gods our forefathers worshipped? We are certainly in disquieting doubt concerning the religion to which you are calling us.’
'Tell me, my people,’ Salih said, 'if I have clear evidence from my Lord which I have learnt about and of which I am absolutely certain, and He has granted me prophethood and wisdom, who will protect me from Allah’s punishment if I disobey Him by neglecting to convey His message to you? If I obey you and disobey my Lord, you would in this case do nothing for me except increase my loss and keep me away from all good. This is a she-camel which Allah has sent as a sign for you proving my truthfulness and that of the message I am conveying to you. Leave her alone to pasture at will on Allah’s earth—for you do not have to provide her sustenance—and do her no harm, otherwise a swift punishment will overtake you. Nonetheless, they disbelieved him and killed the she-camel. 'Enjoy yourselves in your time only for three days, after which the punishment will certainly descend upon you,’ Salih warned them. 'This is a true warning which will inevitably come to pass.’
When Our command to the destroy the tribe of Thamud came to pass, We saved Salih and those who believed along with him from destruction, all by Our grace and mercy, and We saved them from the disgrace of that day. Your Lord, Muhammad, is the All-Strong, the All-Mighty. And the mighty blast and awful cry overtook those who had done wrong, and there they lay lifeless in their homes, prostrate on the ground. Their destruction was so swift it appeared as though they had never lived there. Surely the tribe of Thamud disbelieved in their Lord and disbelieved His signs and proofs. Excluded indeed was the tribe of Thamud from Allah’s mercy and from all good.