32 . Sura Al Sajdah

The Quranic Text & Ali’s Version:

أَوَلَمْ يَهْدِ لَهُمْ كَمْ أَهْلَكْنَا مِن قَبْلِهِم مِّنَ الْقُرُونِ...

32: 26. Does it not teach them a lesson, how many generations We destroyed before them,

...يَمْشُونَ فِي مَسَاكِنِهِمْ ...

in whose dwellings they (now) go to and fro?

C3660. If a nation gone astray could only learn from the history of earlier nations that were destroyed for their evil!

They could see vestiges of them in their daily goings to and fro: the Jews could see vestiges of the Philistines, Amalekites, etc. in Palestine, and the pagan Arabs, of the 'Ad and Thamud in Arabia.

...إِنَّ فِي ذَلِكَ لَآيَاتٍ...

Verily in that are Signs:

...أَفَلَا يَسْمَعُونَ ﴿٢٦﴾

do they not then listen?

C3661. "Listen": i.e., listen to the warnings conveyed in Allah's Signs.

Notice how naturally the transition is effected from the physical to the spiritual-from the ruined physical vestiges of ungodly nations on this earth to the more intangible Signs conveyed by History and Revelation.

Here the sense of Hearing is mentioned, both in its physical and its metaphysical or spiritual aspect.

Asad’s Version:

(32:26) [Asad] [But) can, then, they [who deny the truth] learn no lesson by recalling how many a generation We have destroyed before their time? 23 - [people] in whose dwelling-places they [themselves now) walk about? In this, behold, there are messages indeed: will they not, then, listen?

[[Asad’s note - 23 For the wider meaning of the term qarn (lit., "generation"), see note 1 1 1 on 20:128. ]]

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