Qala innakum qawmun munkaroon (surah Hijr: 62)

Tafseer Tafheem-ul-Quran by Syed Abu-al-A'la Maududi

(15:62) he said, "You appear to be strangers. " *36

Qaala innakum qawmum munkaroon

*36) Here the story has been related in brief. But we learn from XI: 77-83 that Prophet Lot was greatly perturbed and distressed at the visit of the angels. He said to himself, "This is a day of woe." The reason why he was distressed, as implied in the Qur'an and explicitly expressed in the Traditions, was that the angels had come to Prophet Lot in the shape of beautiful boys, and he knew how perverse and wicked his people were. He was distressed for he could not send them away because they were his guests, and because he did not know how to protect them from those villains.