﴿ فَكَذَّبُوهُ فَأَخَذَتْهُمُ ٱلرَّجْفَةُ فَأَصْبَحُوا۟ فِى دَارِهِمْ جَٰثِمِينَ ﴾

“But they gave him the lie. Thereupon an earthquake overtook them: and then they lay lifeless, in their very homes, on the ground.”

The community, to which Shu‘ayb was appointed as prophet, was a trading community. Its members, however, became so greedy that they resorted to earning through unfair and fraudulent means. This was how they spread corruption in the land. Legitimate trade is the rightful method of earning, while fraud and exploitation are sinful. Shu‘ayb exhorted his people not to be unmindful of the Hereafter while in pursuit of worldly gain. He beseeched them to adopt a way of life by which they could hope for a better fate in the Hereafter. But, despite the best efforts of the prophet, his community did not pay heed to his exhortations, with the result that, in accordance with the Laws of God, it was destroyed. Their homes, which had reverberated with life, became houses of death and destruction for them.