“When Our emissaries brought the good news to Abraham, and said (to him): ‘We are surely going to destroy the inhabitants of this city; its inhabitants are immersed in wrong-doing.’ Abraham said: ‘But Lot is there.’ They replied: ‘We are well aware of those who are there. We shall save him and all his household except his wife.’ His wife is among those who will stay behind.”
(Al Qur’ān – 29:31-32)
The angels deputed to destroy the people of Prophet Lot first went to Prophet Abraham (Ibrahim). They gave him the good news of the birth of his son, Isaac, and of his grandson, Jacob. They also informed him that they were on their way to destroy the people of Prophet Lot.
‘The city’ here alludes to the territory in which Lot’s people lived. Prophet Abraham at that time lived in Hebron in Palestine, presently known as al-Khalīl. A few miles to the southeast of the city lies that part of the Dead Sea which was once inhabited by Lot’s people and which is now submerged by the sea. This is a low-lying area and is easily visible from the hilltops of Hebron. It is for this reason that the angels pointed in the direction of the city, saying to Prophet Abraham: ‘We are surely going to destroy the inhabitants of this city’.
We learn from al-Tahrīm 66:10 that the Prophet Lot’s wife was not sincere towards her husband. It was, therefore, decided that notwithstanding her being the wife of a Prophet, she too should be afflicted with God’s scourge.