Quran Universe
15:13

لَا يُؤۡمِنُونَ بِهِۦ وَقَدۡ خَلَتۡ سُنَّةُ ٱلۡأَوَّلِينَ

La yuminoona bihi waqad khalat sunnatu alawwaleena

They will not believe in it, while there has already occurred the precedent of the former peoples.

Word by word
  1. لَاNot
  2. يُؤۡمِنُونَthey believe
  3. بِهِۦin it
  4. وَقَدۡand verily
  5. خَلَتۡhave passed
  6. سُنَّةُthe way (s)
  7. ٱلۡأَوَّلِينَ(of) the former (people)
Al-Hijr · 15:13Makkah

They will not believe, though history already spoke.

The way of earlier peoples is known

What already happened
the deniersdestroyed
prophets and followerssaved
known as
the way of the ancientsa lesson on record
Reading the past
old storiesnothing to do with me
a patternthat repeats

The stubborn would not believe in the Quran. Yet Ibn Kathir says the way of the earlier peoples was well known: Allah destroyed those who rejected His messengers and saved the prophets and their followers.

You have watched a friend ignore every warning about a habit and lose a lot to it. You know how that story goes. The question is whether you read your own life with the same eyes.

What happened to people long ago does not tell me anything.

The past is a map of how rejection and faith usually end.

Try this

Pick one lesson from someone else's mistake and apply it to yourself this week.

Simplified reflection. Read the tafsir for scholarship.draft
Tafsir Ibn Kathir (shared passage from 15:10)

Indeed, We sent (Messengers) before you (O Muhammad) amongst the earlier communities (10)And there never came a Messenger to them but that they mocked him (11)Thus We allow it to enter the hearts of the guilty (12)They would not believe in it (the Qur'an); and already the example of the ancients has gone forth (13)

The Idolators of Every Nation made a Mockery of their Messengers

Consoling His Messenger ﷺ for the rejection of the disbelieving Quraysh, Allah says that He has sent Messengers before him to the nations of the past, and no Messenger came to a nation but they rejected him and mocked him. Then He tells him that He lets disbelief enter the hearts of those sinners who are too stubborn and too arrogant to follow His guidance.

كَذَٰلِكَ نَسْلُكُهُ فِي قُلُوبِ الْمُجْرِمِينَ

(Thus We allow it to enter the hearts of the guilty.) Anas and Al-Hasan Al-Basri said that this referred to Shirk.

وَقَدْ خَلَتْ سُنَّةُ الْأَوَّلِينَ

(and already the example of the ancients has gone forth.) meaning the destruction wrought by Allah on those who rejected His Messengers, and how He saved His Prophets and their followers in this world and in the Hereafter, is well known.