His saying - glorified and exalted is He -: ﴿And to 'Aad, their brother Hud said, 'O my people, worship Allah; you have no deity other than Him. So will you not fear?﴾ ﴿The elite who disbelieved from his people said, 'Indeed, we see you in foolishness, and we think you are among the liars.'﴾ ﴿He said, 'O my people, there is no foolishness in me, but I am a messenger from the Lord of the worlds.﴾ ﴿I convey to you the messages of my Lord, and I am to you a trustworthy advisor.'﴾

'Aad' is the name of the tribe; and 'their brother' is in the accusative due to 'We sent'; it is therefore conjoined to 'Nuh'. This is also a warning from Hud - peace be upon him - to his people. The disagreement regarding the reading of 'other than Him' has been mentioned previously. His saying: ﴿'So will you not fear?'﴾ is an appeal to piety and faith.

And His saying, the Exalted: ﴿The elite said﴾ [Al-A'raf: 60]; the verse; the saying regarding such a statement has been mentioned earlier; and 'foolishness' is a noun; it is expressed to describe a weak and unstable state that has no firmness or quality. Foolishness in clothing refers to the lightness of its weaving; and from this is the saying of the poet:

We walked as if the spears swayed, having become foolish, The heights of them were passed by the gentle winds.

And their saying: 'We think you' is a mere assumption; for they had nothing but assumptions and conjectures. The disagreement regarding the reading of 'I convey to you' has been mentioned previously. And His saying, the Exalted, 'trustworthy' may mean that he is trustworthy regarding the revelation and the reminder that descends from Allah - glorified and exalted is He -; and it may mean that he is trustworthy over them, over their unseen matters, and over his intention for good towards them. The Arabs say: 'So-and-so is a trustworthy advisor for so-and-so; a guardian of the unseen.' And it may mean by 'trustworthy' that he is secure from lying and deceit.