Animals of the Signs · The she-camel of Allah · Sign for Thamud
ناقة صالح
The She-Camel of Salih
She came out of the rock with her drinking day appointed by heaven; her hamstringing cost a civilization everything.
The account
Thamud, the rock-carvers of al-Hijr, demanded a sign on their own terms, and received one with a title no other creature carries: "this is the she-camel of Allah, a sign for you" (7:73). The tradition describes her emerging from the mountain itself, vast, drinking a whole day's water; revelation set the timetable: "she has a drinking day, and you have a drinking day, appointed" (26:155), and a single prohibition: touch her not with harm.
The test was pure restraint, and it failed by committee: they called their most wretched (91:12), a red-faced man the Prophet ﷺ identified in a sermon as the match of history's killers, and he hamstrung her while the town assented. Three days' warning, then the cry seized them kneeling in their homes. Surah ash-Shams prices the deed in nine short verses ending with the coldest clause in the Book: "and He does not fear its consequence" (91:15). Passing al-Hijr at Tabuk, the Prophet covered his face and hastened, forbidding entry to the punished valley except weeping. Her seal stands in the Codex for every shared trust given to a community: the sign need not be harmed by the many; it is enough that the many permit the one.
The facts
- TitleNaqatullah, the camel of Allah
- ScheduleAlternating water days
- Killer“Their most wretched” (91:12)
- VerdictThe cry; homes became graves
The Qur'an on it
فَقَالَ لَهُمْ رَسُولُ اللَّهِ نَاقَةَ اللَّهِ وَسُقْيَاهَا فَكَذَّبُوهُ فَعَقَرُوهَا
The messenger of Allah said to them: the she-camel of Allah and her drink. But they denied him and hamstrung her.
The narrations
Do not enter upon these punished people except weeping, lest what struck them strike you.
Bukhari 433 · Muslim 2980 (at al-Hijr)
Read beside it
The words
On the Path