Prophet Lut (AS) – The Warner of Sodom حضرت لوط علیہ السلام – سدوم کے نذیر

The Quran introduces Lut (AS) not in his own land but at the side of Ibrahim (AS). When Ibrahim had confronted his people and been cast into the fire and saved from it, almost no one in his city accepted his message. Allah says: ‘And Lut believed him. [Ibrahim] said, Indeed, I will emigrate to my Lord. Indeed, He is the Exalted in Might, the Wise.’ (Al-Ankabut 29:26). In that single verse Lut appears as one of the earliest believers in the call of Ibrahim, and as his companion in migration.

The scholars of tafsir and history, including Ibn Kathir, relate that Lut was the son of Haran, the brother of Ibrahim, which makes him Ibrahim's nephew. The Quran does not state this relationship explicitly, so it is reported as the view of the commentators rather than as revealed text. What the Quran does make clear is that Lut shared in the long journey of Ibrahim out of Mesopotamia, through the lands of Syria and Palestine, and that he was honoured with prophethood in his own right: ‘And to Lut We gave judgement and knowledge, and We saved him from the city that was committing wicked deeds.’ (Al-Anbiya 21:74).

Ibrahim settled in the land of Canaan, in the region of Palestine, while Lut was sent by Allah to a cluster of towns in the plain of the Jordan river near what is now the Dead Sea. The principal town is known in history as Sodom, with Gomorrah and other settlements beside it. The Quran calls them ‘al-Mu'tafikat’, the overturned towns (At-Tawbah 9:70; An-Najm 53:53), a name that already hints at their fate. It was a fertile and prosperous region, well-watered and placed on trade routes, and the people of those towns were wealthy and secure.

Allah chose Lut as a messenger to these towns from outside their number, yet he lived among them, married among them and spoke to them as ‘his brothers’ in the human sense: ‘The people of Lut denied the messengers, when their brother Lut said to them, Will you not fear Allah?’ (Ash-Shu'ara 26:160-161). That he is called their brother shows that he had become a member of their society, known to them, trusted for his honesty, and able to address them directly.

The relationship between Lut and Ibrahim remained close throughout. Later, when angels were sent to destroy the towns of Lut, they passed first by the tent of Ibrahim, and he pleaded with them on behalf of his nephew's people (Hud 11:74-76). This detail shows the bond between the two prophets, and the concern that Ibrahim, ‘forbearing, grieving and repeatedly turning to Allah’, felt for the fate of any community, even one steeped in sin.

Thus the story of Lut begins in the shade of the story of Ibrahim. He was a man who had accepted the truth when it was dangerous to do so, who left his homeland for the sake of Allah, and who was then entrusted with one of the hardest missions given to any prophet: to call a people who had abandoned the natural order itself, and to warn them of a punishment they would laugh at until the morning it fell.

Every prophet before Lut had called his people away from idolatry, injustice or arrogance. The people of Lut were guilty of all of these, but the Quran singles out something more, a transgression against the very order of creation. Lut said to them: ‘Do you commit such immorality as no one has preceded you with from among the worlds? Indeed, you approach men with desire, instead of women. Rather, you are a transgressing people.’ (Al-A'raf 7:80-81). The phrase ‘no one has preceded you’ is repeated in Surah Al-Ankabut (29:28), and the commentators note that this practice was unknown among the nations of the earth until the people of Sodom made it their habit and their public custom.

The Quran describes their wider corruption as well. In Surah Al-Ankabut, Lut rebukes them: ‘Indeed, you approach men and obstruct the road and commit in your meetings every evil.’ (29:29). They attacked travellers on the highways that passed through their fertile valley, robbing and abusing them, and their gatherings were places of open indecency where shameful acts were performed without any sense of modesty. What other peoples hid in darkness, they displayed in daylight and boasted of.

Ibn Kathir explains that such a society, in which sin becomes a collective identity, is more dangerous than one where sin is the weakness of individuals. The people of Lut did not merely fall into wrongdoing; they defended it, legislated for it and punished those who refused it. When sin becomes law, the voice of the warner is treated as the crime.

The Quran also records that they were a people of the plain who enjoyed security and abundance. Their wealth made them arrogant, and their isolation in the lush valley made them feel beyond reach. Like Thamud in their carved mountains and 'Ad in their towering buildings, they believed their prosperity would last forever. Allah mentions them alongside those nations as a warning to the Quraysh in Makkah: ‘And the people of Lut [denied]. Those were the companies [of disbelievers]. Each of them denied the messengers, so My penalty was justified.’ (Sad 38:13-14).

It should be understood that the Quran names this sin plainly so that it can be rejected plainly. The issue, as Lut framed it, was not simply a private matter; it was the abandonment of the spouses whom Allah had created for them (Ash-Shu'ara 26:166), the assault on strangers, and the mockery of purity. A society that had been given wives and children, fields and water, turned its back on every blessing in pursuit of what it had invented.

Into this society Allah sent a man of judgement and knowledge, who would stand alone for years against a whole people. The Quran does not tell us how long Lut preached, but the pattern of the prophets, and the repeated references to his warnings and their repeated refusals, indicate a long struggle. The towns of the plain had every opportunity to turn back. Their story is told not to shame a vanished people, but to warn every people who imagine that what they have made lawful among themselves has thereby become lawful before Allah.

Lut's call to his people followed the method of all the messengers. He began with taqwa, the fear and consciousness of Allah: ‘Will you not fear Allah? Indeed, I am to you a trustworthy messenger. So fear Allah and obey me. And I do not ask you for it any payment. My payment is only from the Lord of the worlds.’ (Ash-Shu'ara 26:161-164). He reminded them that he was known among them as honest, that he sought no wealth or position from them, and that his only concern was their salvation.

Then he confronted the sin directly, without euphemism: ‘Do you approach males among the worlds and leave what your Lord has created for you as mates? Rather, you are a people transgressing.’ (Ash-Shu'ara 26:165-166). In Surah An-Naml he adds a second charge, that they committed this ‘while you are seeing’, that is, openly and in each other's presence (An-Naml 27:54), and a third, ‘Rather, you are a people behaving ignorantly’ (27:55), ignorant not for lack of knowledge but for refusing to act on what they knew.

Their response reveals how far they had gone. They did not argue that Lut was wrong; they did not deny the facts he described. Instead, ‘the answer of his people was only that they said: Evict the family of Lut from your city. Indeed, they are people who keep themselves pure.’ (An-Naml 27:56; Al-A'raf 7:82). Purity itself had become an offence in their eyes. They treated Lut's family as a foreign body, to be expelled so that the town could continue undisturbed.

When Lut persisted, they mocked him by demanding the punishment he spoke of: ‘Bring us the punishment of Allah, if you should be of the truthful.’ (Al-Ankabut 29:29). Those words were a dare, an expression of complete disbelief that anything could reach them. Lut's reply was not a counter-threat but a prayer: ‘My Lord, support me against the corrupting people.’ (29:30). Elsewhere he said: ‘My Lord, save me and my family from what they do.’ (Ash-Shu'ara 26:169). A prophet who has exhausted every argument turns to the One who sent him.

Ibn Kathir notes a striking detail: the Quran mentions no believers among the people of Lut except his own household, and even that household was divided. When the angels came to carry out the punishment, they were told: ‘Indeed, we will save him and his family, except his wife.’ (Al-Ankabut 29:32). Allah states this outcome clearly: ‘And We found not within them other than a house of Muslims.’ (Adh-Dhariyat 51:36). After all those years, one house, and not even all of it. No other prophet in the Quran is recorded with so small a harvest of faith, and yet Lut is praised and counted among the righteous (Al-An'am 6:86).

His wife's case is given special attention. Allah strikes a parable in Surah At-Tahrim: ‘Allah presents an example of those who disbelieved: the wife of Nuh and the wife of Lut. They were under two of Our righteous servants but betrayed them, so those prophets did not avail them from Allah at all.’ (At-Tahrim 66:10). The commentators explain that her betrayal was not of marital honour but of faith: she sided with the people of the town, and some reports say she informed them when guests came to her husband's house. Lut lived with disbelief under his own roof, and bore that too with patience.

The decree against the towns of the plain came in the form of visitors. Allah sent a group of angels, Jibril among them according to the commentators, in the appearance of handsome young men. Their first stop was the dwelling of Ibrahim (AS). ‘And certainly did Our messengers come to Ibrahim with good tidings; they said, Peace. He said, Peace, and did not delay in bringing a roasted calf.’ (Hud 11:69). When he saw that their hands did not reach for the food, he grew afraid, for refusing food was a sign of hostile intent. They reassured him: ‘Fear not. We have been sent to the people of Lut.’ (11:70).

At that moment his wife Sarah, standing nearby, laughed, and the angels gave her the glad tidings of Ishaq and, after Ishaq, Ya'qub (11:71). The Quran then describes Ibrahim's reaction when the fear left him and the good news settled in his heart: ‘he began to argue with Us concerning the people of Lut. Indeed, Ibrahim was forbearing, grieving and repeatedly turning to Allah.’ (11:74-75). He asked whether a town with a believer in it would be destroyed, hoping for a delay. The reply was firm: ‘O Ibrahim, give up this. Indeed, the command of your Lord has come, and indeed, there will reach them a punishment that cannot be repelled.’ (11:76). In Surah Al-Ankabut he says, ‘Indeed, within it is Lut,’ and they answer, ‘We are more knowing of who is within it. We will surely save him and his family, except his wife.’ (29:32).

The angels then travelled on to the town of Lut. When he saw them, strangers of striking beauty, with no escort, in a place where travellers were preyed upon, ‘he was distressed for them and felt for them great discomfort and said, This is a trying day.’ (Hud 11:77). He knew exactly what his people would do if they learned that such guests were in his house. Some reports in the books of tafsir say he tried to delay them and mentioned the wickedness of his people to discourage them from entering, but these details go beyond the Quranic text and are reported as such.

News spread, and ‘his people came hastening to him, and before this they had been doing evil deeds.’ (11:78). The Quran says in Surah Al-Hijr: ‘And the people of the city came rejoicing.’ (15:67). Lut stood at his door between a crowd and his guests. His words combine dignity, desperation and the responsibility of a messenger toward those under his roof: ‘O my people, these are my daughters; they are purer for you. So fear Allah and do not disgrace me concerning my guests. Is there not among you a man of reason?’ (11:78).

The commentators, including Ibn Kathir, explain ‘my daughters’ as the women of the town in general, for a prophet is like a father to his nation, and he was calling them back to lawful marriage with women, not offering his own household to a mob. Either way, his intention was to turn them from sin to what Allah had permitted, and to protect his guests at any cost to himself. In Surah Al-Hijr he adds: ‘Indeed, these are my guests, so do not shame me. And fear Allah and do not disgrace me.’ (15:68-69).

Their answer was contemptuous: ‘You have already known that we have not concerning your daughters any claim, and indeed, you know what we want.’ (11:79). They even mocked his hospitality: ‘Have we not forbidden you from [protecting] people?’ (15:70), meaning that he had been told not to shelter strangers. At that point Lut spoke the words that every prophet besieged by his people has felt: ‘If only I had against you some power or could take refuge in a strong support.’ (11:80). The Prophet Muhammad ﷺ commented on this verse: ‘May Allah have mercy on Lut; he was indeed taking refuge in a strong support,’ meaning Allah Himself (Sahih al-Bukhari 3375; Sahih Muslim 151). And then the angels revealed who they were.

When Lut had spoken his last plea, the angels disclosed their identity: ‘O Lut, indeed we are messengers of your Lord; they will never reach you.’ (Hud 11:81). The fear fell from him. The Quran relates in Surah Al-Qamar what happened next to the mob at his door: ‘And they had demanded from him his guests, but We obliterated their eyes.’ (54:37). Ibn Kathir and the commentators describe that Jibril struck them, and they were left blind, groping along the walls, still threatening Lut with what they would do in the morning. The sign had been given, and still they did not repent.

The angels then gave Lut his instructions: ‘So set out with your family during a portion of the night and let not any among you look back, except your wife; indeed, she will be struck by that which strikes them. Indeed, their appointment is for the morning. Is not the morning near?’ (11:81). In Surah Al-Hijr the command is similar: ‘So set out with your family during a portion of the night and follow behind them and let not anyone among you look back and continue on to where you are commanded.’ (15:65). The prohibition against looking back was a test of obedience and a mercy, so that the believers would not witness the horror behind them. His wife, according to the commentators, either remained in the town or turned back toward it, and so shared its fate (Al-A'raf 7:83; Ash-Shu'ara 26:171).

Lut had asked, in the crowd's hearing, when the punishment would come; the angels answered with the gentle urgency of ‘Is not the morning near?’ He left the town in the darkness with his daughters, and the Quran says of them: ‘So We saved him and his family, all, except an old woman among those who remained behind.’ (26:170-171). The believing household was a handful of people walking out of a doomed valley while its inhabitants slept.

Then came the dawn. ‘So the shriek seized them at sunrise. And We made the highest part [of the city] its lowest and rained upon them stones of hard clay.’ (Al-Hijr 15:73-74). Surah Hud describes it as: ‘So when Our command came, We made the highest part [of the city] its lowest and rained upon it stones of layered hard clay, marked from your Lord. And Allah's punishment is not from the wrongdoers [very] far.’ (11:82-83). The towns were lifted and overturned, and a rain of stones fell on all who were scattered outside them. ‘Marked from your Lord’, the commentators say, means that each stone was destined for a particular person; none escaped.

Surah Al-Qamar summarises the morning: ‘And there came upon them by morning an abiding punishment. So taste My punishment and warning.’ (54:38-39). The punishment combined several elements mentioned in different surahs: a terrible cry, the overturning of the land, and the stones from the sky. Of the prosperous plain, nothing remained but ruin and a dead sea.

The angels had told Ibrahim, and Allah tells us, that no one in those towns was wronged. They had been warned at length, shown a sign in the blinding of their eyes, and given one last night. The Quran states the principle: ‘And your Lord would not destroy the cities unjustly while their people were reformers.’ (Hud 11:117). The people of Lut were not reformers; they were, in their own words, people who had been told what they wanted and rejected every alternative. The morning they had dared Lut to bring upon them came, and it was near.

Allah did not erase the towns of Lut from memory. He preserved their ruins as a lesson, and addressed the Arabs who travelled the trade route from Makkah to Syria, passing by that desolate shore: ‘And indeed, you pass by them in the morning and at night. Then will you not use reason?’ (As-Saffat 37:137-138). In Surah Al-Hijr He says: ‘Indeed in that are signs for those who discern. And indeed, those cities are on an established road.’ (15:75-76). And in Surah Al-Ankabut: ‘And We have certainly left of it a sign as clear evidence for a people who use reason.’ (29:35). The lowest, most lifeless place on the surface of the earth bears witness to the story.

The Prophet Muhammad ﷺ took the story of Lut as a living warning. He said: ‘The thing I fear most for my nation is the deed of the people of Lut.’ (Sunan at-Tirmidhi 1457; Sunan Ibn Majah 2563; its chain is graded hasan by some scholars and weak by others, so it is cited as supporting evidence, not as the primary proof). The primary proof is the Quran itself, which calls the act ‘fahishah’, an abomination, and ‘transgression beyond bounds’ (Al-A'raf 7:80-81). The Prophet ﷺ also drew from Lut a lesson about hospitality and reliance on Allah, saying that Lut had been taking refuge in a strong support, meaning his Lord (Sahih al-Bukhari 3375).

After the destruction, the Quran says nothing further about the life of Lut. Ibn Kathir mentions reports that he went to the land of Ibrahim and lived there until his death, and that he is said to be buried in the region of Palestine, but these are historical reports without a sound chain, and nothing in the Quran or Sunnah confirms the place of his burial. What is established is his honour: Allah lists him with Isma'il, Al-Yasa' and Yunus, saying, ‘and all [of them] We preferred over the worlds’ (Al-An'am 6:86), and He says: ‘And We admitted him into Our mercy. Indeed, he was of the righteous.’ (Al-Anbiya 21:75).

Several lessons emerge from his account. The first is that a prophet's success is measured by his faithfulness, not by the number of those who respond. Lut preached for years and gathered only his own daughters, yet he is among the elect. The second is that no family tie, not even marriage to a prophet, benefits a person who chooses disbelief; his wife is the proof. The third is that hospitality and the protection of the vulnerable are duties for which a believer may have to risk everything.

The story also teaches about the stages of a society's decline. The people of Lut began with one invented sin, then added robbery, then public indecency, then the persecution of the pure, and finally the open mockery of punishment. At each stage there was a warner, and at each stage the warning was treated as an insult. When Allah's command came, there was no further delay.

Finally, Lut's story is one of mercy as well as justice. Ibrahim argued for the towns; the angels saved every believer; the command to leave came before the command to destroy; and the morning was announced in advance. The Quran closes the account with words that apply to every age: ‘And Allah's punishment is not from the wrongdoers [very] far.’ (Hud 11:83). To those who hear it, this is not a threat but an invitation: the road out of the valley is still open, and the night is still long enough to walk it.