The Heights
IN THE NAME OF GOD, THE MOST GRACIOUS, THE DISPENSER OF GRACE[7:73]
AND UNTO [the tribe of] Thamūd [We sent] their brother Sālih. He said: "O my people! Worship God alone: you have no deity other than Him. Clear evidence of the truth has now come unto you from your Sustainer.
"This she-camel belonging to God shall be a token for you: so leave her alone to pasture on God’s earth, and do her no harm, lest grievous chastisement befall you.

---

* v.73 : The Nabataean tribe of Thamūd descended from the tribe of ‘ād mentioned in the preceding passage, and is, therefore, often referred to in pre-Islamic poetry as the “Second ‘ād.” Apart from Arabian sources, “a series of older references, not of Arabian origin, confirm the historical existence of the name and people of Thamūd. Thus the inscription of Sargon of the year 715 B.C. mentions the Thamūd among the people of eastern and central Arabia subjected by the Assyrians. We also find the Thamudaei, Thamudenes mentioned in Aristo, Ptolemy, and Pliny” (Encyclopaedia of Islam IV, 736). At the time of which the Qur’ān speaks, the Thamūd were settled in the northernmost Hijāz, near the confines of Syria. Rock-inscriptions attributed to them are still extant in the region of Al-Hijr. – As in the case of the ‘ādite prophet Hūd – and the prophet Shu‘ayb spoken of in verses 85-93 of this sūrah – Cālih is called the “brother” of the tribe because he belonged to it.
* The commentators cite various legends to the effect that this she-camel was of miraculous origin. Since neither the Qur’ān nor any authentic Tradition provides the least support for these legends, we must assume that they are based on the expression nāqat Allāh (“God’s she-camel”), which has led some pious Muslims to fantastic conjectures. However, as Rashīd Ridā’ points out (Manār VIII, 502), this expression denotes merely the fact that the animal in question was not owned by any one person, and was therefore to be protected by the whole tribe; a further, analogous expression is found in the words “God’s earth” in the same verse: an illustration of the fact that everything belongs to God. The particular stress placed by Cālih on good treatment of this ownerless animal – referred to in several places in the Qur’ān – was obviously due to the cruel high-handedness displayed by the tribe, who, as the next two verses show, were wont to “act wickedly on earth by spreading corruption” and “gloried in their arrogance towards all who were deemed weak”: in other words, their treatment of the defenceless animal was to be a “token” of their change of heart or (as is made clear in 54:27) “a test for them.”