Tafsir

In verses 28 and 29, it was said: وَمَا أَنزَلْنَا عَلَىٰ قَوْمِهِ مِن بَعْدِهِ مِن جُندٍ مِّنَ السَّمَاءِ وَمَا كُنَّا مُنزِلِينَ إِن كَانَتْ إِلَّا صَيْحَةً وَاحِدَةً فَإِذَا هُمْ خَامِدُونَ " (And We did not send down to his people any army from the heavens after him, nor were We (in need ) to send down. It was no more than a single Cry, and in no time they were extinguished.)Mentioned here is the Divine punishment that descended upon the people who had rejected the messengers and had beaten up Habib Najjar until he died a martyr. And regarding the sending of punishment, it was said that Allah did not have to send an army of angels to seize these people - nor was it the way of Allah to send such an army, because just a single angel of Allah is enough to destroy the greatest, mightiest and the bravest of nations. Why would he need to send an army of angels? After that, given there was a crisp description of the punishment coming upon them - it was just a single shrill Cry of the angel, and there they were, all extinguished under its sonic sweep.

It appears in Hadith narrations that the archangel, Jibra'il al-'amin (علیہ السلام) ، holding the two sides of the city gate, came up with a hard and horrendous Cry, the shock from which proved unbearable for any living soul, and they all succumbed to sudden death.

The state of their dying has been expressed through the word: خَامِدُونَ khamidun) by the Qur'an. The words: خَامِدا (khamada) and خُمُود (khumud) are used to mean the extinguishing or dying of fire. The life of the living depends on energy. When this energy is not there, what remains is death. So, 'khamidun' means extinguished, gone extinct, put off.