The Quran

Preface

قالَ المَلَأُ الَّذينَ استَكبَروا مِن قَومِهِ لِلَّذينَ استُضعِفوا لِمَن آمَنَ مِنهُم أَتَعلَمونَ أَنَّ صالِحًا مُرسَلٌ مِن رَبِّهِ ۚ قالوا إِنّا بِما أُرسِلَ بِهِ مُؤمِنونَ

Yusuf Ali

The leaders of the arrogant party among his people said to those who were reckoned powerless - those among them¹ who believed: “know ye indeed that Ṣālih is a messenger from his Lord?” They said: “We do indeed believe in the revelation² which hath been sent through him.”

As usually happens in such cases, the Believers were the lowly and the humble, and the oppressors were the arrogant, who in selfishly keeping back nature’s gifts (which are God’s gifts) from the people, were deaf to the dictates of justice and kindness. Ṣālih took the side of the unprivileged, and was therefore himself attacked.
Notice the relation between the question and the answer. The godless chiefs wanted to discredit Ṣālih, and put a personal question, as much as to say, “Is he not a liar?” The Believers took back the issue to the higher plane, as much as to say, “We know he is a man of God, but look at the justice for which he is making a stand: to resist it is to resist God”. The answer of the godless was to reject God in words, and in action to commit a further act of cruelty and injustice in hamstringing and killing the she-camel, at the same time hurling defiance at Ṣālih and his God.