The Holy Qur'an has paid special attention to the narration...

The Holy Qur'an has paid special attention to the narration of the history of the past nations and the stories of the Prophets and of those who opposed them, and a large part of the verses and Surahs of the Qur'an has been specially devoted to this very subject i.e. the history of the ancients.

However, the object of these narrations of the Qur'an is not only that the Muslims should know that Prophet Musa was a good man and Pharaoh was a bad man or that the tribes named 'Ad and Thamud were bad and deviated whereas the people belonging to other nations were good.

How do Muslims stand to gain or lose because of the goodness of Prophet Musa and other Prophets and the goodness of the Christians of Najran, who were killed at the hands of Zu Nuwas, the King of Yemen or the badness of Zu Nuwas?

The object of the narration of the history of the ancients is that the Muslims should ponder over the factors for the advancement, glory and good name of a nation and for the adversity, humility and downfall of another nation, and do things which make nations advanced and respectable, and shun those things which have in the past been the cause of the downfall, adversity, Divine punishment and extinction of the nations.

They should understand that the Divine Sunnah (Divine Path) does not undergo a change. If a nation becomes honorable in the world for some reason, that reason will always be the means of glory, and if a nation becomes degraded and humble for some reason, that reason will always be the source of its misfortune and humiliation. Previous…