“Signs for Those Who Can Decipher Them” : Ancient Ruins in the Qurʾān

The Qurʾān contains a substantial discourse focusing on ruins, part of a larger presentation of salvation history, including both the biblical past and the legends of pre-Islamic Arabia. The Qurʾānic portrayal of ruins focuses on prophetic missions to ancient nations and their destruction by acts of God’s punishment. It also stresses mankind’s edification through the historical and archaeological traces that ancient civilizations have left behind. Ruins provide concrete evidence of the history of communication between God and mankind through prophecy; they are meant to be examined with the goal of understanding that process. According to the Qurʾānic text, mankind has an ethical obligation to study ancient civilizations and ancient ruins in order to understand both the nature of mankind and the regular patterns of God’s workings in the world.

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Published in: Behind the Story: Ethical Readings of Qurʾānic Narratives
License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
See chapter on publisher's website: https://dx.doi.org/10.1163/9789004683167_004