The Story of 'Aad, the People of Hud (peace be upon him)

The Shaykh : As for 'Aad: Iram, the one with the pillars, meaning the one with the great houses built on strong pillars. Allah the Exalted gave them great strength, so they became arrogant in the land and said: to this extent!! Then Allah, Mighty and Majestic, said: . Thus, Allah, Mighty and Majestic, made it clear that Allah is stronger than they are in power, and He provided rational evidence for this, which is that Allah is the One who created them. For this reason, He said: , and He did not say: "Or did they not see that Allah is stronger than they are in power?" Rather, He said: , because it is known by the intellect with necessary knowledge that the Creator is stronger than the created. So the One who created them is stronger than they are in power, .
So Allah, Glorified and Exalted is He, afflicted them with drought, with severe drought, and the sky withheld its rain. So they began to ask for rain, meaning they sought or waited for Allah to send them relief. Then Allah sent upon them the barren wind. On the morning of one of the days, the wind came, a great wind carrying sand and dust until it became like a piled-up cloud: . This was a wisdom from Allah, Mighty and Majestic. The wind did not come to them just like that; rather, it came to them while they were hoping it was rain, so that its impact would be more severe. Something came toward them that they hoped would be a cloud to water them, and lo, it was a wind that would destroy them. So the fact that the punishment comes in a state in which a person is contemplating the removal of the harm makes it greater and greater, just as if you had promised a person dirhams and then took them away from him, it would be more severe and greater. When they saw it as a cloud facing their valleys, they said, "This is a cloud that will rain on us." Allah the Exalted said: . This is because they were challenging their Prophet, saying, "If you have a punishment, bring the punishment if you are truthful." , and refuge is sought in Allah. It raged against them for seven nights and eight days, because it began in the morning and ended at sunset, so it became seven nights and eight days of successive cutting, severing their rear, and refuge is sought in Allah, cutting them off, until it would carry one of them to the sky and then throw him down. So they became like the trunks of empty palm trees, like the trunks of the palms, meaning the uprooted, twisted bases of the palms on their backs, and refuge is sought in Allah, in the posture of prostration, because they wanted to escape from this wind after it carried them and struck them against the ground, but this did not benefit them. Allah the Exalted said: , and refuge is sought in Allah.