An-Naml (The Ant)

57. “So We saved him and his household, except his wife, We had decreed her to be of those that tarried.”

58. “And We rained down on them a shower (of brimstone), and evil was the shower of those who had been warned.

The Divine leaders are under the protection and support of Allah:

“So We saved him…”

The fruit of people’s piety and virtue in this world is their being saved from the wrath of Allah.

The Arabic word /qabirin/, which means: ‘those that tarried and were annihilated’, has been used seven times in the Qur’an and all of them are about Lot’s wife.

It has been cited in narrations that Lot taught those people for about thirty years but none believed in him except his household, (and among them even his wife had the creed of pagans).¹

It is evident that such a group, who might not be improved, could not have a room for living in this world and they should be annihilated.

Therefore, this verse says:

“So We saved him and his household, except his wife, We had decreed her to be of those that tarried.”

Then, when Lot and his family came out of the city at the appointed time, (in midnight of the night when the city was full of corruption and shame), a terrible earthquake turned their land completely upside down, and, in the morning, a shower of brimstone came over there.

The verse says:

“And We rained down on them a shower (of brimstone), and evil was the shower of those who had been warned.”

We had a detailed discussion about the people of Lot and their fate, as well as the evil effects of Sodomy, when explaining holy Surah Hud, No. 11, verse 77-83, which is not necessary to be repeated here again.

There is only one point, of course, that seems necessary to be mentioned here, as follows:

As a factor for duration of man’s seed and the calmness of his soul, the law of creation has set the sexual attraction between two opposite sexes, and its change toward Sodomy disturbs both the spiritual calmness and the social peace. And since these social laws have a trace in man’s nature, this change causes a kind of disorder in the system of the entity of man.

Lot, the great prophet of Allah, attracted the attention of that deviated nation to this natural trace and said to them:

“Do you commit indecency while you see (its iniquity)?”

This ignorance and unawareness of the law of life was in the sense of foolishness that drugged them towards this devious way.

It is not marvellous that other laws of creation may change due to this nation, too, and instead of a wholesome rain water, a shower of brimstone rains down over them, and their peaceful land turns over by an earthquake, and, consequently, not only they are destroyed but also no trace remains from them.