Picture a people so tall and so strong that what was left of Nuh's drowned world looked, to them, like a warning meant for weaker men. They lived among gardens and springs in the sand dunes of southern Arabia, they carved palaces into the tops of the mountains just to brag, and they had one sentence they were sure of above all others: who is stronger than us? This is the nation of Ad, and Mufti Menk underlines a phrase to hold onto until the very end, because the ending turns on it: they were the strongest nation Allah ever created.
This is day eight of twenty-nine, retold faithfully from Mufti Ismail Menk's beloved series. Yesterday the water rose; today nothing rises at all, not even rain. Watch one thing as you read: how a people came to mistake their own muscle for safety, and what Allah did to a strength that thought it had outgrown Him.
The giants who inherited the earth
أَوَعَجِبْتُمْ أَن جَآءَكُمْ ذِكْرٌ مِّن رَّبِّكُمْ عَلَىٰ رَجُلٍ مِّنكُمْ لِيُنذِرَكُمْ ۚ وَٱذْكُرُوٓا۟ إِذْ جَعَلَكُمْ خُلَفَآءَ مِنۢ بَعْدِ قَوْمِ نُوحٍ وَزَادَكُمْ فِى ٱلْخَلْقِ بَصْۜطَةً ۖ فَٱذْكُرُوٓا۟ ءَالَآءَ ٱللَّهِ لَعَلَّكُمْ تُفْلِحُونَ
“Then do you wonder that there has come to you a reminder from your Lord through a man from among you, that he may warn you? And remember when He made you successors after the people of Noah and increased you in stature extensively. So remember the favors of Allah that you might succeed.”
Surah al-A'raf 7:69 Read 7:69 with tafsir
Generations after the flood, the survivors of the ark told their children how they had been saved, and the children told their children, and somewhere down that line shaytan slipped the old idea back in: worship something other than the One who made you. The people of Ad settled the southern edge of Arabia, the region Mufti Menk places between Oman and Yemen near Hadramawt, in a country of sand dunes so striking that one whole surah of the Qur'an, al-Ahqaf, takes its name from them. According to one report, says Mufti Menk, these were the first of the Arabs.
And Allah had given them everything. Wealth, gardens, gushing springs, and bodies built on a scale the world had never seen. The Qur'an says He increased them in stature extensively, and Mufti Menk reads the verse two ways at once, both of them true: the people themselves were enormous, like towering pillars, and so were the homes they raised, with ceilings high enough that a giant would not have to stoop to enter his own door. So whenever you recite that verse, he says, picture the people of Ad: that is how tall they were, the successors Allah set on the earth after the people of Nuh, and never created their like again.
A brother stands up and says one word: worship Him
وَإِلَىٰ عَادٍ أَخَاهُمْ هُودًا ۚ قَالَ يَٰقَوْمِ ٱعْبُدُوا۟ ٱللَّهَ مَا لَكُم مِّنْ إِلَٰهٍ غَيْرُهُۥٓ ۖ إِنْ أَنتُمْ إِلَّا مُفْتَرُونَ
“And to Aad [We sent] their brother Hud. He said, "O my people, worship Allah; you have no deity other than Him. You are not but inventors [of falsehood]."”
Surah Hud 11:50 Read 11:50 with tafsir
When their gardens turned them away from the One who grew them, Allah sent them a man from among themselves: Hud, peace be upon him. The Qur'an calls him akhahum, their brother, and Mufti Menk pauses on the word, because it is a pattern that runs through nearly every nation: the prophet was one of their own, born among them, known to them his whole life, so that no one could wave him off as an outsider or a stranger. He was the man they had always called truthful and trustworthy, and now he stood up with a single message.
It was the same message every prophet brought, the one Mufti Menk says is the prime issue of them all: O my people, worship Allah, you have no god other than Him. Not a new tax, not a new tribe, not a reorganization of their wealth, just the One who made them, in place of the stones they had carved. Shaytan's oldest trap is shirk, associating partners with Allah, because it lets him laugh at man and at his Lord at once; so from the first page of the Qur'an to the last, every messenger says the very same line. Hud said it to the strongest people who ever lived. He may as well have been talking to a mountain.
We see you as a fool, they said
قَالَ ٱلْمَلَأُ ٱلَّذِينَ كَفَرُوا۟ مِن قَوْمِهِۦٓ إِنَّا لَنَرَىٰكَ فِى سَفَاهَةٍ وَإِنَّا لَنَظُنُّكَ مِنَ ٱلْكَٰذِبِينَ
“Said the eminent ones who disbelieved among his people, "Indeed, we see you in foolishness, and indeed, we think you are of the liars."”
Surah al-A'raf 7:66 Read 7:66 with tafsir
The chiefs answered the way the comfortable always answer the man who threatens their comfort: with insults, one after another. We see you as a fool, they said. Then they reached for the rest of the rack. He is possessed, a jinn has touched him, that is why he raves; our gods are angry with him for insulting them, and they have struck his mind. He is a liar after our money, doing all this for some scheme of his own. Mufti Menk lists the charges and then asks the question under all of them: why so many accusations against one honest man? And he gives the answer plainly. It was never that they could not understand Hud. It was that surrendering to him meant changing their whole way of life, and rather than secure the next life they chose to secure this one, and lose the next.
Notice how close that sits to us, he says, and he means it to land. A man comes and says leave the drinking, leave the cheating, leave the interest, leave the harming of people, and something in us would rather discredit the messenger than examine the message. We call him an extremist, or too poor to matter, or in it for himself, anything but right. But the truth does not check your bank balance before it becomes true. If a child from the poorest home says something correct, Mufti Menk says, you listen, because what makes a word worth hearing is that it is true, not who carried it. The people of Ad could not get past who Hud was long enough to hear what Hud said.
Palaces on every hilltop, and a people who thought they would live forever
أَتَبْنُونَ بِكُلِّ رِيعٍ ءَايَةً تَعْبَثُونَ
“Do you construct on every elevation a sign, amusing yourselves,”
Surah ash-Shu'ara 26:128 Read 26:128 with tafsir
وَتَتَّخِذُونَ مَصَانِعَ لَعَلَّكُمْ تَخْلُدُونَ
“And take for yourselves constructions [i.e., palaces and fortresses] that you might abide eternally?”
Surah ash-Shu'ara 26:129 Read 26:129 with tafsir
Hud held a mirror up to how they lived. On every high place they raised a landmark, a great house carved into the mountain, and Mufti Menk catches the strange detail the Qur'an preserves: these were not homes they lived in. They were monuments to boast over. That one is mine, that one is my brother's, that one is the uncle's. They built on the heights to be seen, and then went down to the valleys and built the houses they actually lived in as though they would never leave them, as though death were a rumor that happened to smaller men.
And here Mufti Menk turns the whole scene gently onto the rich among us, himself included, because there is nothing wrong with owning much. The wrong is what wealth did to Ad. When Allah gives you more, he says, the right response is to come closer to the ground, not to climb above everyone: to be found more in the masjid, not less; to give more charity, not hoard; to greet the people you pass instead of letting a gulf open between you and them because you are now the richest man in the street. Ad got the gift and forgot the Giver, and built their pride into the very rock. The verse that should sting is the one about living forever: they took those fortresses as if they would abide eternally. No one does.
Turn back, and your strength will only grow
وَيَٰقَوْمِ ٱسْتَغْفِرُوا۟ رَبَّكُمْ ثُمَّ تُوبُوٓا۟ إِلَيْهِ يُرْسِلِ ٱلسَّمَآءَ عَلَيْكُم مِّدْرَارًا وَيَزِدْكُمْ قُوَّةً إِلَىٰ قُوَّتِكُمْ وَلَا تَتَوَلَّوْا۟ مُجْرِمِينَ
“And O my people, ask forgiveness of your Lord and then repent to Him. He will send [rain from] the sky upon you in showers and increase you in strength [added] to your strength. And do not turn away, [being] criminals.”
Surah Hud 11:52 Read 11:52 with tafsir
Like Nuh before him, Hud did not only warn; he held out the gift in the other hand. Two things, he told them, and watch the doors swing open: ask your Lord's forgiveness, and then turn back to Him and walk His way. Mufti Menk separates the two on purpose, the way Hud does. Istighfar is to say, my Lord, forgive me. Tawbah is to then actually move onto the road, because it is not enough to ask forgiveness while standing in the same place. Do both, Hud promised, and the sky will pour rain on you, and Allah will add strength to the strength you already have.
Sit with the size of that offer, says Mufti Menk, because it is staggering. These were already the most powerful people Allah had ever made, and He was offering them more, simply for turning back to Him. Honor does not come from arrogance, Hud was telling them; it comes from humbling yourself before Allah, and there is a saying of the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ that says it outright: whoever humbles himself for the sake of Allah, Allah raises him. They could have had everything and kept it. They turned away.
Who is stronger than us?
فَأَمَّا عَادٌ فَٱسْتَكْبَرُوا۟ فِى ٱلْأَرْضِ بِغَيْرِ ٱلْحَقِّ وَقَالُوا۟ مَنْ أَشَدُّ مِنَّا قُوَّةً ۖ أَوَلَمْ يَرَوْا۟ أَنَّ ٱللَّهَ ٱلَّذِى خَلَقَهُمْ هُوَ أَشَدُّ مِنْهُمْ قُوَّةً ۖ وَكَانُوا۟ بِـَٔايَٰتِنَا يَجْحَدُونَ
“As for Aad, they were arrogant upon the earth without right and said, "Who is greater than us in strength?" Did they not consider that Allah who created them was greater than them in strength? But they were rejecting Our signs.”
Surah Fussilat 41:15 Read 41:15 with tafsir
And then came the sentence that names the whole disease. We are stronger than the people of Nuh, they said, we have more than they had, we cannot be destroyed. They threw the old warning back in Hud's face and asked the question they thought had no answer: who is mightier than us in strength? This, Mufti Menk notes, is the very verse the Prophet ﷺ recited to Utbah ibn Rabi'ah when Quraysh came to bargain him out of his message; he read from Surah Fussilat until he reached the people of Ad, and Utbah went back to his people shaken.
Because the Qur'an answers Ad in the same breath they ask. Did they not see, Allah says, that the One who created them is mightier than them in strength? It is the simplest arithmetic in the universe, and the affluent are forever forgetting it: the hand that made your muscle is stronger than your muscle. Mufti Menk gives the image that strips the boast bare. Allah could send a single mosquito, one insect with a whine in the dark, and undo a man in a palace built for five hundred. You can have the biggest house and the softest bed, and one tiny sound at night defeats you. That is how much the strength of Ad was worth against the One who made it.
The cloud they cheered, and the wind that came instead
فَلَمَّا رَأَوْهُ عَارِضًا مُّسْتَقْبِلَ أَوْدِيَتِهِمْ قَالُوا۟ هَٰذَا عَارِضٌ مُّمْطِرُنَا ۚ بَلْ هُوَ مَا ٱسْتَعْجَلْتُم بِهِۦ ۖ رِيحٌ فِيهَا عَذَابٌ أَلِيمٌ
“And when they saw it as a cloud approaching their valleys, they said, "This is a cloud bringing us rain!" Rather, it is that for which you were impatient: a wind, within it a painful punishment,”
Surah al-Ahqaf 46:24 Read 46:24 with tafsir
وَأَمَّا عَادٌ فَأُهْلِكُوا۟ بِرِيحٍ صَرْصَرٍ عَاتِيَةٍ
“And as for Aad, they were destroyed by a screaming, violent wind”
Surah al-Haqqah 69:6 Read 69:6 with tafsir
Hud finally stood before the whole nation and freed himself of them: I call Allah to witness, and I call you to witness, that I am free of the partners you set up beside Him, so plot against me, all of you together, and give me no respite. It was the challenge turned around: they had said we will deal with you, and he said, then do it, every one of you, and see what your Lord does. And they did not come. Mufti Menk calls that the first crack, the moment a flicker of fear admitted that deep down they were not so sure. Then Allah sent a drought, the gardens dried, and when they begged their stones for rain and got none, Hud told them again: this rain you want, it comes through istighfar and tawbah, nothing else.
Instead they kept demanding the punishment he warned of: bring it, then, if you are truthful. So one day a great dark cloud came rolling toward their valleys, and the healthy, thirsty people of Ad looked up and cheered, this is a cloud bringing us rain. No, the Qur'an says, with a flatness that is terrible: it is the very thing you were impatient for, a wind carrying a painful punishment. And what a wind. Mufti Menk reaches for al-Haqqah, where Allah calls it a screaming, violent wind, freezing and howling, that He loosed on them for seven nights and eight days without a pause, until you would have seen those giants thrown down across the ground like the hollow, uprooted stumps of palm trees. The strongest people Allah ever made, snapped off at the root and tossed in the wind.
Then do you see of them any remains?
تُدَمِّرُ كُلَّ شَىْءٍۭ بِأَمْرِ رَبِّهَا فَأَصْبَحُوا۟ لَا يُرَىٰٓ إِلَّا مَسَٰكِنُهُمْ ۚ كَذَٰلِكَ نَجْزِى ٱلْقَوْمَ ٱلْمُجْرِمِينَ
“Destroying everything by command of its Lord. And they became so that nothing was seen [of them] except their dwellings. Thus do We recompense the criminal people.”
Surah al-Ahqaf 46:25 Read 46:25 with tafsir
فَهَلْ تَرَىٰ لَهُم مِّنۢ بَاقِيَةٍ
“Then do you see of them any remains?”
Surah al-Haqqah 69:8 Read 69:8 with tafsir
When the command of Allah came, He saved Hud and the believers who had stood with him, and the wind took everything else, destroying all of it by the order of its Lord until nothing was left to see but their empty houses. And then Allah does something with Ad He does not do with the others, and Mufti Menk lingers on it. Of Pharaoh there is a body kept as a sign. Of Madyan and of Thamud there are ruins you can still stand in. But of Ad, Allah asks His Prophet ﷺ a question that is its own verdict: then do you see of them any remains? If the Qur'an had not told us they existed, Mufti Menk says, we would have no trace of them at all. The Muslim historians explain why: they were so strong, so sure no one could touch them, that Allah did not merely destroy them, He erased them, wiped them off the face of the earth so completely that the proudest nation that ever lived left less behind than the weakest.
And there is one more verse Mufti Menk sets beside it, because it is the whole lesson sharpened to a point. Allah reminds Quraysh, and reminds us, that He had established Ad in ways He never established you, and gave them hearing and sight and hearts, and not one of those faculties availed them anything, because they used them to reject His signs. Read that and check yourself, he says: we too have ears, and eyes, and a heart. The only question the story leaves on the table is whether, when the message reaches us, we will use them to hear, to see, and to turn, or whether we will stand on our own small hilltop asking who is stronger than us, until the wind answers.