His saying, exalted and glorified is He:

﴿Then We fulfilled for them the promise, so We saved them and whom We willed, and We destroyed the transgressors﴾ ﴿Indeed, We have sent down to you a Book in which is your mention. Will you not then understand?﴾ ﴿And how many a city did We destroy that was unjust, and We brought forth after it another people﴾ ﴿So when they sensed Our punishment, here they fled from it﴾

This is a warning within His description, exalted and glorified is He, of His way with the prophets, peace be upon them, that He fulfills their promises. Likewise, He fulfills for Muhammad, blessings and peace be upon him, and his companions what He promised them of victory and the triumph of the word. And His saying, exalted is He: ﴿and whom We willed﴾ means from the believers. And "the transgressors" refers to the disbelievers who are excessive in their misguidance and disbelief. Everyone who abandons faith is a transgressor.

Then He reproached them, blessed and exalted is He, with His saying: ﴿Indeed, We have sent down to you a Book in which is your mention﴾, and the Book is the Qur'an. His saying: ﴿in which is your mention﴾ may mean: in it is the mention that Allah has sent down to you concerning your religion, your hereafter, and your salvation from His punishment. Thus, He attributed the mention to them as it pertains to their affair. It may also mean: in it is your honor and mention at the end of time, just as the great matters are mentioned. In this is an encouragement, then the encouragement is confirmed by His saying: ﴿Will you not then understand?﴾, and that stirred them to reflection.

Then He exemplified for them regarding the threat of those nations that were punished before, and "how many" is for abundance, and it is in the accusative case with "We destroyed". And "We destroyed" means: We annihilated. The origin of destruction is breaking in bodies; when it is borrowed for a people or a city and the like, it resembles breaking, which is their annihilation. Thus, He inflicted these matters upon the city, and the intended meaning is its people. This is a frequent theme, and from it is: ﴿No city believed before them﴾ [Al-Anbiya: 6], and His saying: ﴿And We brought forth after it﴾ means: We created and established another nation that was not destroyed.

And His saying, exalted is He: ﴿So when they sensed Our punishment﴾ is a description of a city from the cities that were punished. It is said: it was in Yemen and was called Hadura. Allah, exalted is He, sent a messenger to its people, and they killed him. So He sent to them Bukhth Nasr, the companion of the Children of Israel, and they defeated his army twice. Then he rose against them in the third time himself, and when he defeated them and inflicted killing upon them, they fled. It is possible that the verse does not refer to a specific city, but that He is describing every city from the punished cities, and that the people of every city, when they sensed punishment of any kind, began to flee. And "sensed" means they encountered it with their senses. And "fleeing" is the movement of the foot in the usual manner, and the one fleeing and running in general is a runner, whether it is an animal or the ground, likening it to an animal.