37 Preface فَكَذَّبوهُ فَأَخَذَتهُمُ الرَّجفَةُ فَأَصبَحوا في دارِهِم جاثِمينَYusuf AliBut they rejected him: Then the mighty Blast1 seized them, and they lay prostrate in their homes by the morning.The story of Shu'ayb and the Madyan people is only referred to here. It is told in 11:84-95. Their besetting sin was fraud and commercial immorality. Their punishment was a mighty Blast, such as accompanies volcanic eruptions. The point of the reference here is that they went about doing mischief on the earth, and never thought of the Ma'ad or the Hereafter, the particular theme of this Sūra. The same point is made by the brief references in the following two verses to the ‘Ād and the Thamūd, and to Qarun, Pharaoh, and Haman, though the besetting sin in each case was different. The Midianites were a commercial people and trafficked from land to land; their frauds are well described as spreading “mischief on the earth”.