Road to Ubar Pa - Nicholas Clapp [34]
Hud replied: "Did they not see that God, who had created them, was more mighty than they in strength?" (41.15).
The first person to believe in Hud that day was one Junada, forty of whose cousins also believed. But the rest of the people rebuked and cursed Hud. He continued to indulge them, though, for a long time. Then God caused the women's wombs to become barren, and not a single woman among them bore a son or daughter. Hud never ceased warning them until he had been calling them to worship God for seventy years, but still they had no faith.
Kaab al-Ahbar said: Hud finally lifted his gaze to heaven and said, "O God, I ask thee to strike them down with famine and drought. Perhaps then they will believe. If they do not, then I ask thee to destroy them through torment such as no one has been destroyed by before or will afterward."
So it was that God took away the rain and caused the earth to shrivel up, and no green thing grew in their fields and their beasts died; but they bore all this with patience for four years, until, despairing of themselves, they were about to believe. Thereupon King Khuljan told his subjects, "You must not enter into Hud's religion even if you be eating sand and drinking urine. If this suffering has afflicted us because of the multitude 90 of our sins, why then have the wild beasts and animals of burden, which have no sin, been afflicted as much as we?"
Hud answered, calling out from a mountain-top, saying, "O children of'Ad, if you have faith in your Lord, I will ask Him to send the heavens to you to pour down rain and to cause the earth to send forth her fruits."
II. The Delegation to Mecca
Ibn Abbas [yet another cited chronicler] said that in those days it was the custom, when a people was afflicted from heaven or from an enemy, to take offerings to the Sanctuary of the Ka'aba 100 and to ask God for release from suffering. They would enter the Sanctuary mounted on she-camels adorned with diverse jewels.
In accordance with this custom, the Ad chose from among their nobles seventy men. Seven were chosen as leaders, and their names were Qayl, Luqman, Jahlama, Ubayl, Marthid (who believed in Hud), Amr, and Luqaym. While they were departing from their land, they heard a voice saying, "Despair and misery for you, O House of 'Ad! You shall perish, and a destructive, shifting, icy gale, turbulent with dust, will descend upon you." They paid no attention to the voice, however, and no went along their way.
When the delegation arrived seeking entrance into the Sanctuary, they heard a voice saying,
"May God vanquish the delegation of'Ad:
They have traveled to pray for rain;
May they quench their thirst with hot water!"
The king of Mecca at that time was called Muawiya ibn Bakr. The delegation descended on his house and remained there for one month, eating and drinking, and forgot what they had come for. But Muawiya was loathe to ask them to leave his 120 house, although it was said that all this hospitality had grown burdensome for him. Therefore, he sent them two slave-girls, called the Two Locusts, who were singers in his service. He said to them, "While they are eating and drinking, sing to them and make them desirous of praying for rain." The two girls sang,
"Woe unto you! Woe unto 'Ad!
Because of great thirst neither grand lord nor slave
has hope.
O delegation of drunks, remember your tribe,
parched with thirst."
When they heard what the slave-girls said, they bathed themselves, put on clothes not soiled by wine, approached the Sanctuary, and draped it with their robes; but the Sanctuary would not accept them.
One of the men said, "Shall we abandon the religion of our noble and meritorious fathers, and follow the religion of Hud?"
"O God," said Marthid (who believed in Hud), "you are right to send torment to those who believe not!"
III. God's Vengeance
God commanded the angel of the clouds to spread over them 140 three clouds, one white, one red, and one black. When the delegation returning from Mecca saw these clouds, they rejoiced. But one