وَمَآ أَرْسَلْنَا فِى قَرْيَةٍۢ مِّن نَّبِىٍّ إِلَّآ أَخَذْنَآ أَهْلَهَا بِٱلْبَأْسَآءِ وَٱلضَّرَّآءِ لَعَلَّهُمْ يَضَّرَّعُونَ
We did not send a prophet to any town without visiting its people with stress and distress so that they might entreat [for Allah’s forgiveness].
ثُمَّ بَدَّلْنَا مَكَانَ ٱلسَّيِّئَةِ ٱلْحَسَنَةَ حَتَّىٰ عَفَوا۟ وَّقَالُوا۟ قَدْ مَسَّ ءَابَآءَنَا ٱلضَّرَّآءُ وَٱلسَّرَّآءُ فَأَخَذْنَٰهُم بَغْتَةًۭ وَهُمْ لَا يَشْعُرُونَ
Then We changed the ill [conditions] to good until they multiplied [in numbers] and said, ‘Adversity and ease befell our fathers [too].’ Then We seized them suddenly while they were unaware.
وَلَوْ أَنَّ أَهْلَ ٱلْقُرَىٰٓ ءَامَنُوا۟ وَٱتَّقَوْا۟ لَفَتَحْنَا عَلَيْهِم بَرَكَٰتٍۢ مِّنَ ٱلسَّمَآءِ وَٱلْأَرْضِ وَلَٰكِن كَذَّبُوا۟ فَأَخَذْنَٰهُم بِمَا كَانُوا۟ يَكْسِبُونَ
If the people of the towns had been faithful and Godwary, We would have opened to them blessings from the heaven and the earth. But they denied; so We seized them because of what they used to earn.
أَفَأَمِنَ أَهْلُ ٱلْقُرَىٰٓ أَن يَأْتِيَهُم بَأْسُنَا بَيَٰتًۭا وَهُمْ نَآئِمُونَ
Do the people of the towns feel secure from Our punishment overtaking them at night while they are asleep?
أَوَأَمِنَ أَهْلُ ٱلْقُرَىٰٓ أَن يَأْتِيَهُم بَأْسُنَا ضُحًۭى وَهُمْ يَلْعَبُونَ
Do the people of the towns feel secure from Our punishment overtaking them at midday while they are playing around?
أَفَأَمِنُوا۟ مَكْرَ ٱللَّهِ ۚ فَلَا يَأْمَنُ مَكْرَ ٱللَّهِ إِلَّا ٱلْقَوْمُ ٱلْخَٰسِرُونَ
Do they feel secure from Allah’s devising? No one feels secure from Allah’s devising except the people who are losers.
أَوَلَمْ يَهْدِ لِلَّذِينَ يَرِثُونَ ٱلْأَرْضَ مِنۢ بَعْدِ أَهْلِهَآ أَن لَّوْ نَشَآءُ أَصَبْنَٰهُم بِذُنُوبِهِمْ ۚ وَنَطْبَعُ عَلَىٰ قُلُوبِهِمْ فَهُمْ لَا يَسْمَعُونَ
Does it not dawn upon those who inherited the earth after its [former] inhabitants that if We wish We will punish them for their sins, and set a seal on their hearts so they would not hear?
تِلْكَ ٱلْقُرَىٰ نَقُصُّ عَلَيْكَ مِنْ أَنۢبَآئِهَا ۚ وَلَقَدْ جَآءَتْهُمْ رُسُلُهُم بِٱلْبَيِّنَٰتِ فَمَا كَانُوا۟ لِيُؤْمِنُوا۟ بِمَا كَذَّبُوا۟ مِن قَبْلُ ۚ كَذَٰلِكَ يَطْبَعُ ٱللَّهُ عَلَىٰ قُلُوبِ ٱلْكَٰفِرِينَ
These are the towns some of whose accounts We recount to you. Their apostles certainly brought them manifest proofs, but they were not the ones to believe in what they had denied earlier. Thus does Allah put a seal on the hearts of the faithless.
وَمَا وَجَدْنَا لِأَكْثَرِهِم مِّنْ عَهْدٍۢ ۖ وَإِن وَجَدْنَآ أَكْثَرَهُمْ لَفَٰسِقِينَ
We did not find in most of them any [loyalty to] covenants. Indeed, We found most of them to be transgressors.
English translation: Ali Quli Qarai
With the prophetic cycles told, the sūra draws the moral as a divine custom (sunna). Every town's people were first "seized with adversity and hardship, that they might humble themselves" (94), then given ease — "until they multiplied and said, 'Hardship and ease touched our fathers too'" (95), reading the alternation as mere fate rather than summons, so that the sudden blow fell while "they did not perceive." al-Ṭabarsī and al-Ṭūsī read the pairing exactly: God "governs His disobedient creatures by hardship and ease alike, and when they are corrupted by both, seizes them suddenly, that it be more crushing in regret." Verse 96 supplies the counter-factual that haunts the whole passage — "had they believed and feared God, We would have opened upon them blessings from heaven and earth" — from which al-Ṭūsī even draws the fine point (al-Balkhī's) that one slain unjustly "would not, had he lived, have been due to die."
The rhetorical heart is the triple challenge of 97–99: do they feel secure of God's might "by night while they sleep," "by day while they play," and finally of "the plan of God (makr Allāh)"? al-Qummī and al-Burhān gloss the word plainly — "the makr of God is the punishment" — and preserve al-Ṣādiq's prayer, bowed in ṣalāt: "O God, do not make me feel secure from Your plan," then aloud, "none feels secure from God's plan but the losers." al-Ṭabarsī and al-Ṭūsī take up the obvious difficulty — that the infallible prophets did feel secure yet are no losers — and answer that the verse means the sinful, or that the prophets never felt secure of God's punishment of the disobedient, "and so were kept from sins."
The close (100–102) turns inward, to "those who inherit the earth" who fail to learn, whose hearts God "seals." al-Ṭūsī is careful here against the determinists (the Bakriyya): "We seal their hearts" is a fresh report of what God does to the obstinate, not governed by "if We willed," since the dead "neither hear nor accept faith." But the passage's most distinctive reading belongs to the Imāmī sources, who hear in "they would not believe in what they belied before" (101) the doctrine of the primordial covenant. al-Qummī and al-Burhān gloss "before" as "the first Particle-world (al-dharr)" — "a refutation of whoever denies the covenant in the dharr" — and al-Burhān unfolds al-Bāqir's narration: God raised humankind "in the shadows," the prophets called them first to affirm God, then the prophets, then "our walāya — and those He loved affirmed it, and those He hated denied it." So "We found no covenant in most of them" (102) becomes, with Abū Dharr, the verdict that "none kept God's covenant save the Prophet's household and a small band of their Shīʿa" — and, al-Kāẓim adds, the verse "was revealed about the doubter." The lesson of the ruined towns thus opens, by these readings, onto the covenant the whole sūra is moving toward at 7:172.