Overall meaning : Allah, Exalted and Sublime be He, makes brief references to some past communities and the dreadful fate they suffered for denying their prophets: We gave Moses the Torah and appointed his brother Aaron as his helper to convey Our message. We said to them, ‘Go together to Pharaoh and his people who have rejected Our signs.’ Then We utterly destroyed them when they persisted in their unbelief by drowning them in the sea. We also drowned the people of Noah when they denied him, and We made their destruction a lesson for people; and We have prepared for the wrongdoers a painful torment on Judgement Day.
We likewise destroyed ‘Aad (Hud’s people), Thamud (Salih’s people), the people of Ar-Rass (People of the Well) for their stubborn unbelief, and many other unbelieving nations in between known only to Allah. To each of these We clearly showed signs of Our oneness, and each of them We destroyed completely.


The unbelievers of the Quraysh have certainly passed by the city of Lot’s people upon whom We rained down clustered stones of baked clay. Have they not seen in their journeys the signs of Our destroying it as a result of their stubborn unbelief, so that they make take heed and learn a lesson from them?! They have surely seen the awful end of the people of that city that We destroyed, but they have no faith in the resurrection, nor do they expect any recompense after death or fear Our punishment.