The second cause behind cultural downfall is "man's mischief"...

The second cause behind cultural downfall is "man's mischief", or "misuse of life and man's existence", or "unwise use of things", or "the use of man's existence for goals other than the ones set for him".

Should such a thing arise, if man misuses Allah's favours and the resources of nature in the wrong way, for bad purposes, in the wrong place and time; not as Allah has ordered, man's own deviation, in this respect, serves as the green light that signals the start of the collapse of a certain culture: "Then We made Our promise good to them; so We delivered them and whom We pleased, and We destroyed the extravagant." Holy Qur'an (21:9) "