Alam nuhliki al-awwaleen (surah Mursalat: 16)

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

(77:16) Did We not destroy many a nation of the earlier times? *8

Alam nuhlikil awwaleen

*8) This is an argument from history for the Hereafter, It means; "Consider your own history in the world. Whichever nations denied the Hereafter and took this worldly life to be real life and based their moral attitude on the results appearing here regarding them as the criterion of good and evil, ultimately went to their doom without exception This is a proof of the fact that the Hereafter is an actual reality overlooking and ignoring which causes the same kind of harm to a person which is caused when he chooses to close his eyes to the hard facts of life. (For further explanation, see E.N. 12 of Yunus, E.N. 86 of An-Naml, E.N. 8 of Ar-Rum, E.N. 25 of Saba).