Ash-Shu'ara (124-127)

"When their brother Hud said to them, '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 reward is only from the Lord of the worlds.'"

The recounting of the command to fear Allah and to obey, and the negation of seeking any reward in the five narratives [of the prophets in this Surah], and commencing with that, serves to alert [the reader] that the foundation of the mission is the call to recognize the truth and [to practice] obedience in matters that bring the one being called closer to reward and distance him from punishment. [It also signifies] that the prophets (peace be upon them) are unified in this, even if they differed in some branches of the religious laws due to the variation of times and eras, and that they (peace be upon them) are entirely free from worldly greed.

Perhaps this path was not followed in the stories of Moses and Abraham (peace be upon them both) for the sake of stylistic variation, along with the mention of elements that imply that meaning. It has been said that what was mentioned there [in those stories] was more significant. The dwellings of 'Ad were between Oman and Hadramawt, and they were the most fertile and populous of lands, so Allah the Exalted transformed them into wildernesses and sands. His saying, the Exalted, points to their former prosperity.