﴿ قَالَ رَبِّىٓ أَعْلَمُ بِمَا تَعْمَلُونَ ﴾

“Answered [Shu’ayb]: “My Sustainer knows fully well what you are doing.””

Shu‘ayb’s community had so much faith in the righteousness of their forefathers’ ways that the prophet’s sayings seemed perverse and absurd. They said that somebody might well have cast a magic spell on him to make him talk the way he did. They challenged Shu‘ayb to bring down the punishment of the skies, if what he said were true. They did this to deride Shu‘ayb, feeling that the punishment would certainly not descend because of him. The insolence of this community invited the direct wrath of God, as a vast cloud plunged them in gloom and a raging fire enveloped them, wiping out even the smallest trace of the community.