7سَخَّرَها عَلَيهِم سَبعَ لَيالٍ وَثَمانِيَةَ أَيّامٍ حُسومًا فَتَرَى القَومَ فيها صَرعىٰ كَأَنَّهُم أَعجازُ نَخلٍ خاوِيَةٍAli UnalWhich God made to prevail against them for seven nights and eight days, uninterruptedly,1 so that you could have seen people lying overthrown in it, as though they were hollow trunks of palm-trees.For the peoples of ‘Ād and Thamūd, see sūrah 7: 65–79, notes 16–17, sūrah 11: 50–68, and sūrah 26: 123–158. The Qur’ān uses several words for the punishment that struck the Thamūd, such as the awful blast (11: 67), a shocking catastrophe (7: 78), and the lightning-like punishment of humiliation (41: 17). These are aspects of the punishment that the Qur’ān describes, being suited to the subject and style of the sūrah where they are mentioned. In sūrah 29: 40, the Qur’ān sums up the kinds of punishment by which God destroyed many peoples.