The Angels who Came to Prophet Lot (pbuh)
Our Lord used angels to reveal to Prophet Lot that his tribe would be punished severely for their excesses. The coming of the angels to him and God’s commandment are revealed as follows in the verses:
He [Lot] said: “You are people we do not know.” They said: “We have come to you with what they had doubts about. We have brought you the truth, and we are certainly truthful men. Travel with your family in the dead of night, following behind with them in front of you. None of you must look back. Go to where you are ordered.” We revealed to him the command We had decreed: that on the following morning the last remnant of those people would be cut off. (Qur’an, 15:62-66)
Prophet Lot’s wife would also be destroyed. Because she was also a denier. The fact that she was the wife of a worthy individual who had been honored with the rank of prophethood availed her nothing.
The final fate of the people of Lot is described as follows in the Qur’an:
And Lot, when he said to his tribe: “Do you commit an obscenity not perpetrated before you by anyone in all the worlds? You come with lust to men instead of women. You are indeed a depraved tribe.” The only answer of his tribe was to say: “Expel them from your city! They are people who keep themselves pure!” So We rescued him and his family—except for his wife. She was one of those who stayed behind. We rained down a rain upon them. See the final fate of the evildoers! (Qur’an, 7:80-84)
The retribution meted out by God to the people of Lot is described thus in other verses:
When Our command came, We turned their cities upside down and rained down on them stones of hard baked clay, piled on top of one another in layers, each one earmarked by your Lord. And they are never far from the wrongdoers. (Qur’an, 11:82-83)
Perhaps “turning upside down” signifies the region’s destruction by a powerful earthquake. The expression “rained down on them stones of hard baked clay” may indicate a volcanic eruption and the “hard baked” lava and stones thrown up by it. In other words, the tribe may have been destroyed by an earthquake followed by a volcanic eruption. God knows best.
The cities inhabited by the people of Lot, who appear in the Qur’an and were finally destroyed, have been revealed in recent archaeological excavations:
These were the cities known as “Sodom” and “Gomorrah” in the Torah.
According to archaeological research, the cities were located by the Dead Sea, which extends along the Israeli-Jordanian border. The area is thickly covered with sulfur.
The layers of lava and basalt are the main evidence to show that there was once a volcanic eruption and earthquake here. The Dead Sea, or Lake Lot, lies right over a seismically active region, in other words on an earthquake belt.
