This verse recurs in Shahrur because it enters into his understanding of the destruction of societies as a historical sunna, not an isolated event. Through it, he reads punishment and destruction within laws that operate in human social life.
Verse text as it appears
And there is no town except that We will destroy it before the Day of Resurrection or punish it with a severe punishment. That is in the Book inscribed.
Brief reading
The verse is made the basis for the claim that societies have a course that ends in destruction when its causes are fulfilled. For this reason, he does not read it as news about a particular town only, but as an entry into a historical law.
Axes
- Narrative and historical
- Political and social
- Methodological
Related concepts
- Historical process: 2
- Cosmic law of destruction: 2
- Law of destruction: 2
- Collective punishment: 2
- Political violence: 2
- Town: 2
Its place in the network of concepts
The verse is linked to the law of destruction, the historical process, and society. It is important because it shifts discourse about punishment from an incidental understanding to the sunan that govern the movement of groups.
The verse’s role in the argument
- Foundation: 5
- Support: 1
Summary of its presence in the atlas
- Destruction is a historical sunna.
- It is linked to the social process.
- It appears in the understanding of the law of punishment.
Pages in the atlas that refer to this verse
These links gather the pages that rely on the verse or make it part of the argument within the atlas.
Related atoms
Related structural theses
Places of use
- The State and Society, p. 12: It relies on the verse to state that the destruction of societies, or their punishment, is a written historical law that operates according to objective sunan with no exception.
- Concept: Historical process
- Function of the verse here: Foundation
- Textual citation: “The Exalted says: {And there is no town except that We will destroy it… That is in the Book inscribed} (Al-Isra 58).”
- The State and Society, p. 133: It makes it a foundational text for the idea that every monist society carries within it the seeds of its own extinction or punishment before the Resurrection.
- Concept: Cosmic law of destruction
- Function of the verse here: Foundation
- Textual citation: “God – Mighty and Exalted – has threatened to destroy the societies built on the monist system (the town) in His saying – exalted is He –: {And there is no town except that We will destroy it …} (Al-Isra 58).”
- The State and Society: He builds on it a comprehensive law for the destruction of monist towns before the Day of Resurrection or their punishment with a severe punishment.
- Concept: Law of destruction
- Function of the verse here: Foundation
- Textual citation: “{And there is no town except that We will destroy it…} (Al-Isra 58).”
- The State and Society, pp. 208-209: He adduces the verse to show that some forms of destruction and punishment occur in worldly life upon monist societies, making it evidence for the corruption of collective polytheism and collective punishments.
- Concept: Collective punishment
- Function of the verse here: Foundation
- Textual citation: “We can understand from this that collective polytheism has a worldly punishment, as indicated by God’s threat to destroy the towns (the monist ones) collectively in this world, as we saw in His saying: {And there is no town except that We will destroy it …} (Al-Isra 58).”
- The State and Society, p. 249: He makes the verse evidence that conflict and violence are a historical law inseparable from the rise and fall of states.
- Concept: Political violence
- Function of the verse here: Support
- Textual citation: “The Wise Revelation made clear that violence is used in the establishment and collapse of states: {And there is no town except that We will destroy it …} (Al-Isra 58).”
- The Qur’an in Contemporary Thought, pp. 15-16: He makes it the basis of a historical law that sees the town as symbolizing the monist society whose fate is destruction.
- Concept: Town
- Function of the verse here: Foundation
- Textual citation: “{And there is no town except that We will destroy it…} (Al-Isra 58).”
Related books
This page is presented within the general method of building the atlas.