سَخَّرَها عَلَيهِم سَبعَ لَيالٍ وَثَمانِيَةَ أَيّامٍ حُسومًا فَتَرَى القَومَ فيها صَرعىٰ كَأَنَّهُم أَعجازُ نَخلٍ خاوِيَةٍ

فَهَل تَرىٰ لَهُم مِن باقِيَةٍ

Which He disposed against them for seven gruelling nights and eight days, so that you could have seen the people lying about therein prostrate as if they were hollow trunks of palm trees.

So do you see any trace of them?

EXEGESIS

Which He disposed (sakhkhara) against them means which He imposed over them and subjugated them to, because the verb sakhkhara generally suggests to subjugate and to have dominion over someone or something (see 14:32, 43:13, and 45:13). It also shares the same root as sakhara (to mock, ridicule, scoff).

Ḥusūm (sing. ḥāsim) (gruelling) describes the seven nights and eight days. Several meanings have been suggested for this adjective. It can mean gruelling, trying, or even fatal.^{‎[1]Hans Wehr, ḥ-s-m.} Rāghib defines it as something that removes all the traces of another,^{‎[2]Raghib, ḥ-s-m.} and the Arabic lexicographer Ibn Manẓūr offers various meanings: firstly, incessantly or successively without a break; secondly, to cut through something – a sword, for example, is called ḥusām and cauterising a wound is also called ḥasam; and lastly, it can be used to describe something cursed or unlucky (naḥs).^{‎[3]Lisan, ḥ-s-m.} This last meaning is quite likely derived from other verses of the Quran describing the destruction of ʿĀd as being caused by an icy gale during ill-fated (naḥisāt) days (41:16) and on an incessantly ill-fated (naḥs) day, knocking down people as if they were trunks of uprooted palm trees (54:19-20).

Khāwiyah (hollow), denotes emptiness. It is also used to describe hunger or empty walnut shells.^{‎[4]Raghib, kh-w-y.}

The fact that their punishment continued for over a week suggests they did not perish quickly. If they had, there was no point in the punishment raging on for so long. This however is not to indicate how hardy and strong they were – for nothing can withstand the wrath of God – but the seven gruelling nights and eight days must have been a part of the punishment so that they would witness their lands and beautiful structures break away, and death and destruction all around them. At first, they were knocked down as if they were trunks of uprooted palm trees (54:20) before they could finally be seen lying about therein prostrate as if they were hollow trunks of palm trees.

The analogy of their people being like hollow trunks of palm trees alludes to their tall structures, now no longer robust, and hence empty or hollow, easily thrown around by the strong winds.

The unspoken warning is that even nations that see themselves as being strong and invincible are, before God, just hollow trunks or like chewed up straw (105:5).

Any trace of those who lived in the past is found either through their descendants or the structures they leave behind. So this question in verse 8 – so do you see any trace of them? – implies they were all, without exception, wiped out, despite their robustness, such that neither their descendants nor their majestic edifices remained, except for the ruins that remained as an admonition for others.

And this is true for all generations that were destroyed for their mischief and transgression: How many a generation We have destroyed before them! Can you see any one of them, or hear from them so much as a murmur? (19:98).

EXPOSITION

This verse is also another example of the many parallels drawn in the Quran of nations being destroyed by that which manifests their inner state and their iniquities (see the Exposition of verse 5). Likewise, their punishment in the hereafter matches and is fuelled by their negative psyches (see the Expositions of verses 31-32). In this case, those who mock and ridicule (sakhara) their prophet are subjugated (sakhkhara) to gruelling chastisement. The Quran often laments the attitude of the faithless in mocking (sukhrah) the faithful (2:212), the apostles of God (6:10, 11:38), and what God reveals to them (37:14).

REVIEW OF TAFSĪR LITERATURE

Rāzī tries to explain the absence of their trace (verse 8), quoting Ibn Jurayj, that the people of ʿĀd were alive for seven nights and eight days suffering the wrath of God before they perished on the evening of the eighth day, and the winds carried and threw their bodies into the seas and hence the verse, So they became such that nothing could be seen except their dwellings (46:25).^{‎[5]Razi, 30/623.}

But the meaning of nothing could be seen except their dwellings in 46:25 can mean no sign of life could be seen. Or, if true, then it may refer to two different times so that at first, you could have seen the people lying about therein prostrate as if they were hollow trunks of palm trees (verse 7) and It left nothing that it came upon without making it like decayed bones (51:42), and with the passage of time and the decaying of their bodies, nothing could be seen except their dwellings (46:25).

INSIGHTS FROM OTHER TRADITIONS

1. For the LORD knoweth the way of the righteous: but the way of the ungodly shall perish.^{‎[6]Psalms 1:6.}
2. Knowest thou not this of old, since man was placed upon earth, that the triumphing of the wicked is short, and the joy of the hypocrite but for a moment? Though his excellency mount up to the heavens, and his head reach unto the clouds; yet he shall perish for ever like his own dung: they which have seen him shall say, Where is he? He shall fly away as a dream, and shall not be found: yea, he shall be chased away as a vision of the night. The eye also which saw him shall see him no more; neither shall his place any more behold him.^{‎[7]Job 20:4-9.}
3. His bones are full of the sin of his youth, which shall lie down with him in the dust.^{‎[8]Job 20:11.}
4. In the fulness of his sufficiency he shall be in straits: every hand of the wicked shall come upon him. When he is about to fill his belly, God shall cast the fury of his wrath upon him, and shall rain it upon him while he is eating.^{‎[9]Job 20:22-23.}
5. The heaven shall reveal his iniquity; and the earth shall rise up against him. The increase of his house shall depart, and his goods shall flow away in the day of his wrath. This is the portion of a wicked man from God, and the heritage appointed unto him by God.^{‎[10] Job 20:27-29.}

[1] Hans Wehr, ḥ-s-m.
[2] Raghib, ḥ-s-m.
[3] Lisan, ḥ-s-m.
[4] Raghib, kh-w-y.
[5] Razi, 30/623.
[6] Psalms 1:6.
[7] Job 20:4-9.
[8] Job 20:11.
[9] Job 20:22-23.
[10] Job 20:27-29.