Quranic Punishments
By Nouman Ali Khan | 2026-01-08T16:05:22.024523+00:00 | Topic: Iman
Quranic Punishments - Friday Khutbah
By Ustadh Nouman Ali Khan
Opening and Introduction
Allah said in His holy book after I seek refuge with Allah from the accursed Satan:
"And how many a city that was insolent toward the command of its Lord and His messengers, so We took it to severe account and punished it with a terrible punishment."
"So they tasted the evil consequences of their actions, and the consequence of their actions was loss."
"My Lord, ease my heart and ease my affair, and release the knot from my tongue that they may understand my speech."
O Allah, make us steadfast when we die with (لَا إِلَٰهَ إِلَّا ٱللَّٰهُ - la ilaha illallah). O Allah, make us of those who believe and do good deeds, and guide us with truth and guide us with patience. Ameen, O Lord of the worlds.
The Structure of Quranic Revelation: Meccan vs Medinan
Where I'm going to begin is somewhere familiar for all of you. The Quran was revealed in stages, and the two major stages of the revelation was the Meccan and the Medinan revelations. So the Prophet (SAW) was given two-thirds of the Quran when he was in Mecca, and the last third when he was in Medina.
The content of the Quran in Mecca and Medina is fundamentally different. There is some overlap, but actually, as far as the subject matter of the Quran, there is a significant difference between the way Allah spoke and what Allah spoke about in Mecca, and the way Allah spoke and what Allah spoke about in Medina.
The Meccan Focus: Destroyed Nations as Warning
And of the many things He talked about in Mecca, you will note one thing, that Allah kept bringing up nations of the past that got destroyed. So any of you that read the Quran regularly, and you go through the Meccan surahs of the Quran, the nations of Aad, and Thamud, and the nation of Nuh (AS), and the nation of Lut (AS), and the nations of Shuaib (AS), and Firaun of course - nations that came a long time
ago in history, some of them very close to the Arabs also, because when they used to travel, they saw some of the ruins and buried sites of some of those nations, some of them were further away.
Allah even mentioned nations around the world that have been buried, that the Arabs will never know about, and even now, nowadays we're doing digs and archaeological excavations in islands in different parts of the world, and you'll find buildings, and villages, and even entire pyramids and castles 200 feet under the ground, that are like 20,000 years old, 15,000 years old, and Allah says about them, Allah covered whatever He covered.
The Primary Audience in Mecca
So He's not just referring to those nations, but let me get to the point. He brings up these nations over and over again, because the primary audience, the main audience of the Meccan Quran, were the non- Muslims. So yes, people were accepting Islam, but majority of the Quran that was revealed to the Prophet (SAW) in Mecca, two-thirds of the Quran was actually dawah. Anybody who was listening, chances were the majority of them were not Muslims, very few people had accepted Islam.
You've heard of dozens and dozens and dozens of stories of companions of the Prophet (SAW), who would hear the ayat of Allah and then they would become Muslim. So the audience to whom Allah was speaking was non-Muslim.
The Elite Opposition in Meсса
And actually, non-Muslims are not the same, they're not all the same, they're in different levels, and one of them was the worst of them, one category of non-Muslims was the worst of them, and these were the elites of the society, the billionaires if you will, the political leaders if you will. Even today, I mean, I don't know where you get your information from, many of you probably TikTok, there's plenty of content available on the corruption of the financial elite, and the corruption of the political elite, and that's something everybody's always known. People at the top have the highest levels of corruption, and they work with each other to maintain their power, and maintain their wealth, doesn't matter how much blood they suck from the common man, and how much they destroy the rest of society, so long as they can hold on to their power and their position.
The Quran identified the leaders of Mecca, the billionaires if you will, of Mecca, as one of the main problems. In fact, the idols around the Kaaba, were actually a really good business strategy for the leaders of Quraish, because it was making sure that tribes from around the region, would come and pay respect to their own personal idol, and that way they can maintain tourism in Mecca.
Because Mecca doesn't exactly have the kind of weather that's suitable for tourism, so you have to have reason for people to come there, and spend their money and spend time there, and every time people
come in, more money comes in, and then they have special privileges, they have security because they are custodians of the Kaaba. Allah even makes reference to that in Surah Al-Ankabut, that He made it:
That Allah made this Haram a safe space for them, a safe place for them, and they can travel, like Allah says:
Allah's Message to the Meccan Elite
But then why did Allah talk about these past nations? He was telling the Quraish: look, you are rejecting Muhammad (SAW), you are rejecting the word of Allah, you are rejecting Allah, you are not the first ones to do this. There were people before you, that were billionaires like you, in fact they had more money than you. There were people before you that had power like you, in fact they had much more power than you can even imagine in this region.
Your little situation over here, where you have some power in Makkah, is nothing compared to what the Pharaoh used to have:
Is nothing like the kind of structures that Thamud and Aad used to build, and the kind of might and power they used to have, the kind of militaries they used to have. So Allah is basically telling them: you think you're so big and tough, I've dealt with bigger and tougher before you, and here's how I deal with them.
When they reject my messenger, when they do kufr of my messenger, and they make fun of my messenger, and they even try to kill my messenger, then eventually what I do with them is, I destroy them in this world. I don't just give them the warning of hellfire, or judgment day, that's for everybody, every human being will come before Allah on judgment day, but those nations have to pay a price in this world, they get annihilated in this world, before they pay a price in the next world.
Individual vs Collective Judgment
And that is part of the, you can call this the collective punishment. So individually in the Quran, every individual, you and me and everybody else, is going to come in front of Allah individually:
Allah says, every one of them will come in front of Allah alone. So I have to go alone, you have to go alone, everyone of us has to go alone.
But there's another system of Allah, another system of justice of Allah, and that system of justice is for nations, and those nations that get a messenger, and then they reject that messenger, and they mock Allah and the ayat of Allah, and they receive a miracle, and they reject that miracle, Allah doesn't just deal with them on judgment day, He deals with them in this life too.
The Shift to Medinan Revelation
And this is one of the most repeated lessons, in the Meccan Quran. So the Sahaba (رَضِيَ ٱللَّٰهُ عَنْهُمْ أَجْمَعِينَ) who are reciting the Quran day and night, they heard these stories of these nations, over and over and over again. If you do even a cursory search of a nation like Thamud, it's mentioned over 25 times in the Quran, across the entire Meccan Quran, and it's not just a mention, it's their story, over and over again, referenced over and over again.
Now, here's the point that I'm trying to make. The Sahaba, the companions of the Prophet (رَضِيَ ٱللَّٰهُ عَنْهُمْ أَجْمَعِينَ), were very familiar, with the subject matter of the Meccan Quran, and I told you, the kind of things Allah talked about in Mecca, are somewhat different, than the kinds of things Allah talks about in Medina.
Now when we come to Medina, one of the things that changes is, Allah addresses, the primary audience is no longer the non-Muslims, the primary audience is the Muslims. Allah is talking to you and me, so we get this new introduction to a phrase:
(يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا - ya ayyuha alladhina amanu) (Used frequently in Medinan surahs)
You've heard this phrase a million times, that is a Madani phrase, that's not used in the Meccan Quran, that's used in the Madani Quran, after the migration, the Muslims are a community, and now Allah is giving guidance to this community.
Medinan Subject Matter
And in this, the subject matter is not the same as, oh those nations got destroyed and all of that, that's not the subject anymore. The subject is, how to deal with the enemy that's coming, for example, there's a lot of movement from the Quraish, there's also the hypocrites, that are within Medina, that are trying to sabotage the government of the Prophet (SAW), so how to deal with the hypocrites, how to deal with the neighboring tribes, the Jews and the Christians, and how to do dawah with them, and what to say to them, and how to speak with them, these are the kinds of instructions, that are coming in Medina.
And of course, then there are the aspects of worship and rituals, that are coming in Medina. So how are you supposed to fast, what are the rules for fasting, comes in Medina, the rules for Hajj, come in Medina, some of the laws, like the law about riba, or the law about inheritance, these laws in their details, come in Medina, and how to lend money, how to borrow money, those kinds of instructions, come in Medina.
The Prominence of Divorce Laws in the Quran
And one such law, you might be surprised, the one law Allah talks about, more than any other law, the one law, one rule, that Allah gets more space in the Quran, than any other rule, is divorce. Allah talks about divorce more than anything else. Compared to that, inheritance is less, compared to that, you know, like salah, gets less details, in fact, doesn't even get much details, compared to that, fasting gets mentioned what? Once, and that's it, there's one couple of ayat about fasting, and we're done, the discussion will not happen again in the Quran.
When we come to the subject matter of divorce, and not just divorce, how should a man divorce a woman? How should he do it? Allah talked about it in so much shocking detail, over and over again, in Surah Al-Baqarah, multiple pages, if you're counting pages, then again instructions in Surah Al-Nisa, then again some guidelines in Surah Al-Nur, then again some guidelines in Surah Al-Ahzab, then again an entire surah, Surah Al-Talaq, then again other references, like in Surah Al-Tahrim, multiple times in the Quran, on this one subject.
The Warning in Surah Al-Talaq
Now, here's what I want, this is my subject, and the nations that got destroyed, why am I bringing this up? Let me share with you, one small piece, of a small surah, that was revealed to the Prophet (SAW), in Medina, and I already told you, what kind of subject is in Medina. This is Surah Al-Talaq, the surah of divorce, and after seven ayat, giving Muslims instructions, on how to do the divorce, then Allah says:
"How many nations have there been, that arrogantly disobeyed the instructions of their master, and arrogantly disobeyed their prophets, then Allah gave them intense punishment, and Allah held them to account, and gave them intense punishment."
"And they tasted the consequences of their deeds, meaning in history, they already tasted the consequences of their deeds, and then there's the next taste coming, which is judgment day."
The Sahaba's Reaction and Understanding
Allah mentioned this, not in the Meccan Quran, now he's mentioning this in Madani Quran, Surah Al- Talaq, and the sahabi listening to this, who's been listening to the Quran from the Meccan times: "Ya Allah, you talk like this when you talk to the kuffar, you speak like this when you talk to the Quraish, because they act like the nation of Nuh, and they act like the nation of Lut, and the nation of Salih, and the nation of Shuaib, and they act like Firaun, so you tell them about Firaun, and how you destroyed
Firaun. Why are you telling us about this? Why are you telling us you destroyed previous nations, or you punish previous nations?"
Understanding the Word "Ataw" (عَتَوْا)
In order to step back and understand something, let's understand one thing about the word "ataw". "Ataw" in Arabic is a little bit different from "isyan". "Isyan" means disobedience. "Ataw" actually means disobedience with defiance, so there's an element of kibr in "ataw".
So to put it simply, there's a student who didn't do his homework, and the teacher says, "where's your homework?" and he says, "sorry, I didn't do it, I'm so sorry teacher," and the other one says, "I didn't do it, what? Yeah, I didn't do it, what are you going to do about it? Are you going to call my dad? Here's my phone, call him, put it on speaker." That kid is not doing isyan, he's doing "ataw", so he's not just disobeying, he's like, "so what?" and he's defiant, he's arrogant in his disobedience, this is the next level.
Allah warns about a nation, that doesn't just disobey Allah, they do "ataw", they get arrogant, and then Allah punishes them, not in the next life, in this life, and He's warning the Muslims of this.
Allah's Rules for Different Types of Disobedience
So when I was studying this a couple of months ago with my team, I started wondering, Allah collectively, He destroys nations, and He says things like:
"Is there even a single individual left? Nobody is left, nobody left alive."
But Allah has another rule, and the other rule of Allah, is what happens when Muslims disobey Allah. Those stories are about when non-Muslims refuse to obey Allah and the messenger, but does Allah also have a rule for when Muslims in the hundreds, in the thousands, in the millions, if Muslims start disobeying Allah, does He have a rule for that too?
The Example of Bani Israel: Punishment of Believing Nations
And the example we have for that in the Quran before us, is the example of Banu Israel. Banu Israel were the Muslims before us, they were given a book, they were given prophets, they accepted those prophets, they believed in those prophets, they believed in that book, they identified themselves as people of revelation, and yet Allah says, they disobeyed Allah.
So what did Allah do with them? Let me read this to you from Surah Al-A'raf, just so you understand, how does Allah deal with a Muslim nation that disobeys Allah? Because He's already explained in Makkan Quran, how He deals with disobedient nations outside of Islam, this is now inside of Islam:
"When they arrogantly disobeyed, again, this is talking about the Israelites, when they arrogantly disobeyed against the things, about the things they were told not to do, We said to them: become monkeys, rejected, apes."
The Meaning of Becoming Like Apes
Now you could think this is biological apes, but there's something else going on here. You know how apes behave? Apes are some of the most violent animals on the planet. And apes can turn violent without warning. And they become extremely violent even against each other. You could have apes that get along for many years and one day, one gets pushed by the other and he beats the other one to death. And the other ones join in and beat and cannibalize their own. They'll eat their opponent's face, his own brother, he'll eat his face.
When apes will see some food or something, they will attack. They won't care who it belongs to or if it's dangerous, they just attack. And they act like a herd. They don't think for themselves. If one is doing it, they all start doing it. So you'll become these impulsive, herd-minded people that'll just not even think for yourselves. You'll act like apes. You'll start beating on each other, fighting each other, killing each other. This is what you will become. This is one punishment.
Additional Punishments for Disobedient Muslim Nations
But Allah has not done:
"And Allah said, until the Day of Judgment, people will keep coming, putting other nations, making them more powerful over the Muslims that will humiliate the Muslims with the worst kind of punishments and the worst kind of tortures over and over again."
And at the end of it, Allah says, "and Allah is very quick to take vengeance, but Allah is also forgiving." Meaning if Allah wanted, He could destroy a nation immediately. He doesn't have to put someone through centuries of humiliation. He could just finish them right away:
(Used in various contexts in the Quran)
Like other nations. But these people are being given slow, painful humiliation because hopefully that will wake them up. Hopefully this will be enough for them to make tawbah and say, "okay, no more disobedience to Allah." And so Allah at the end of that said, "and if they do make tawbah, there's ishara":
"And certainly He's forgiving, loving and caring too." He's not just punishing.
Breaking Into Smaller Nations
Then even another punishment for the Muslim nation that disobeys Allah. He says:
"We broke them up into multiple mini nations in the land."
They're no longer one ummah. They are multiple, smaller, smaller, smaller nations. And you might think, oh, this must mean they got broken into different countries. They got broken into different... Pakistan is a Muslim country. Afghanistan is a Muslim country. Bangladesh is a Muslim country. But they have their own national interest, right? The Indonesians have their own national interest. The Malaysians have their own national interest. We can have the Algerians and the Tunisians and the Moroccans and the Jordanians and the Syrians. But they're all their own nations. They have their own interests. They have their own agendas.
Even if they have family ties across from each other, you can have, you know, tensions between families in the Gulf that live some of them in Bahrain, some in Qatar, some in Kuwait, some in Saudi, some in Yemen. They all have family ties. But the politics are difficult and you have no fly zones and you have all kinds of stuff going on. Sometimes that happens. That's one way to look at it.
Here's another way to look at it. Even within the same country. "Oh, which city? You're from Islamabad? Oh. You're from Karachi? Oh, these Karachi people, man. What do you speak? Sylheti or Bangla? Which one do you speak? Are you like Malay? Or are you Indian Malay? Which Malay are you? So, which part of Tunisia are you from? Which part of Tunisia are you from? Oh, the south. Oh, okay."
You see, these are my people. This is what Allah did with the nation before us:
"Among them are good and among them not so good. Other than that, We tested them with good and bad so hopefully they can come back."
The Degenerate Generation
And this is the last of these punishments:
"After them came a generation that wasn't very good." A useless generation came up. A powerless generation. A backwards generation took over.
The first description of that generation is they inherited the book. They weren't Muslim because they believe it. They're Muslim because mom and dad were Muslim. They just inherited it. Why do you live in this house? Oh, my dad lives in this house. That's inheritance. Why do you have this car? This was my mother's car and we got it. That's why I have it. Why are you Muslim? Oh, my mom, my dad. That's why we're Muslim. They have no knowledge of the book themselves. They just got it. Passed down in inheritance.
They become extremely materialistic. They have the religion but their real religion is money and house and fame and attention and social power. That's what they love. They love this world, this lower life. They don't care about the next life. The book is there but this book is sitting on the shelf. What's in front of them, front and center all the time, is material benefit in some way.
And Allah says, He adds:
And on top of ignoring Allah's book and being materialistic, they have the audacity. They are so courageous in their ignorance. You know what they say? "Of course we'll be forgiven. We're the ummah after all. We should be forgiven. Who else has... These kuffar are not gonna be forgiven. What, is Allah gonna punish us? No, no, no. We are the chosen ummah of Allah. We are the ones. We're ummah of Islam."
And then, if that wasn't enough, Allah says:
This is really interesting phrase. Allah says, if they have all the money in the world and then they had the offer to get double of that, you would think, "okay, I have enough. No, thank you." No, no, no. They would run after that too. This is Allah's way of describing that they had so much greed that they can never be happy with what they have. They always want something more. They always want. The greed never dies in them. They're always wanting more, always wanting more, always wanting more. So they would go after it.
And Allah questions them:
"Wasn't the covenant of the book taken from them that they will not speak anything but the truth about Allah? They're gonna study what's in the book. And the final home is better for those who have taqwa. May Allah make us of them. Don't you people think?"
Allah says, "don't you people think?"
The Connection to Divorce Laws and Hudud
Now, I said that ayah about the nations destroyed or nations punished was from Surah At-Talaq. The last thing I wanna share with you in these couple of minutes is what is the subject of Surah At-Talaq.
You may have heard the word hudud before. Hudud is the limits set by Allah. The word had actually originally refers to a fence or a border. That's the had of something. The animal doesn't cross the fence. Allah in His laws has set some fences and said to the Muslims: stay inside this fence. And whoever crosses this fence is in trouble with Allah. Either you've done wrong to yourself:
"Whoever crosses these limits that are set by Allah, they're doing wrong to themselves."
A Specific Example: Divorce Laws
Now listen to this. I just want... We can talk about all of the hudud. We're just gonna talk about the one that's in this Surah, in Surah At-Talaq. I want us to think about our... Forget thinking about the governments that are not obedient. And we said we need Islamic governments. We need Sharia to be established. We need the... Our elites are secular. They're liberal. They're bringing modern values to Muslim countries.
أستغفر الله، أستغفر الله. Before we do istighfar about them, everyone, myself included, let's look in our own family first. And listen to what Allah is saying.
Allah says in the beginning of this Surah:
We have one minute left, but I'll tell you one thing. He says when a Muslim man divorces his wife, he's not allowed to kick her out of the house, to pressure her out of the house, or even suggest "maybe it's better you go to your parents' house now." He's not allowed to say any of that or do any of that for three period
cycles. And then there are additional rules if she's older - three months, if she's pregnant until the baby is born. Three period cycles.
And Allah says, "do not expel them from their own homes." Now you could have your name on the house. It's your property. But actually for those three months it's her house:
You have to treat those months like the house belongs to her. And you could say, "man, I'm getting divorced because I hate this woman. I can't get along with her. I can't even share the same room with her." Some of the fuqaha, you know what they said about this ayah? They said if you hate her that much, you leave the house. She stays. Can't kick her out of the house. And they shouldn't leave the house.
The Reality in Muslim Communities
Now I come from a Muslim country, Pakistan. Our neighboring country is Bangladesh. Millions of, hundreds of millions of Muslims in India. Sri Lanka. You know what the common practice in our countries is? When somebody divorces a woman? Muslim countries, Muslim families. The moment the guy says, "you're done. I divorce you." He calls her dad. "Come take your daughter. I'm done. Take her away."
The first thing Allah said is:
"Have taqwa of Allah, your Rabb. Don't expel them from their homes. Don't expel them from their homes. And they shouldn't leave."
And then he said, "and these are the hudud of Allah." And what is the man, common, this is the most common thing. And we say, "oh we want the hudud of Allah. We wanna abide by the sharia of Allah." When Allah says his hudud, we say, "come take your daughter. Get out, get out of my house. Get out of my house."
How many millions of women, "where am I gonna go? I have small children, how am I gonna pay for them?" And Allah made the expense of the child, a responsibility of the man in the Quran. Exclusively. The children's support, child support, is exclusively the man's responsibility. Explicitly. These are from the hudud of Allah.
The Collective Consequences of Individual Violations
Okay, if one person breaks this rule, okay, maybe that's just one person who's sinful, and they're in your family, and you don't say anything. So you know when you don't say anything?
(Used in various contexts)
"You're listening to it happen, you're watching it happen, but you're not saying anything? Allah knows all the wrongdoers." The one who does it, and the one who watches is like a spectator. "Can't say anything to my uncle. Can't say anything to my older brother. He's my older brother." Etc, etc.
We do this all the time. And the point I'm trying to make to you is, if enough of us do this, if enough Muslims break the law of Allah, this limit set by Allah, and we're proud to do it too, we're being a real man about it too, we do "utuw" (عُتُوّ - 'utuw), then Allah has a formula. Allah has a rule.
When you do this enough times, I will make you fight each other and kill each other. I will break you up into multiple nations. I will have other people have more power over you, and they will humiliate you in the worst most possible ways. You will have a generation of Muslims, new generation of Muslims, who won't even know why they're Muslim. They just got Islam in inheritance. They'll become extremely materialistic. All they will care about is money, looks, pleasure. That's all they'll care about. And it will never be enough for them. And they won't ever be learning and studying the book of Allah or the deen of Allah. That won't happen.
This will be a punishment Allah will give to those who openly, in enough numbers, disobey Allah.
The Final Warning and Reminder
So now our reading, why would Sahaba be warned that nations were punished before you? This is the last ayah I'm leaving you with. My time's up. He says:
"Allah punished those nations - Salih, Shuaib, those nations. Aad, Thamud, those nations. He says, Allah gave them intense punishment. Therefore, you have taqwa of Allah, people of good minds, that have actually come to believe. Allah has sent a reminder especially to you."
Allah is reminding you through them. All this time we thought Allah is reminding Quraish through them. And now Allah is reminding you and me through them. There's a sunnah of Allah of collective punishment.
Closing Prayer and Reflection
I pray that Allah does not make us of those worthy of collective punishment, nor of individual punishment. I pray to Allah that even within our own families, within our own circles, when we see wrongdoing happen and an open violation of the hudud of Allah going on, that we put a stop to it. We stand by it.
Allah describes us as:
"Those who guard the limits set by Allah." That means I have to not cross those lines. But if people I love are crossing those lines, I pull them back too and say, "no, no, no, no, we don't do that. We don't do that." I have to guard. That's what it means to guard the fence.
So I pray that Allah makes us of those who guard the limits set by Allah, especially when it comes to our families, especially when it comes to our own circles. May Allah (عز وجل - azza wa jal) accept our tawbah and our mistakes and make us transform our behavior so we don't become people that get Allah's (عِقَاب - 'iqab) but we get Allah's (مَغْفِرَة - maghfirah) and Allah's (رَحْمَة - rahmah). His forgiveness and His loving care.
آمین آمین
Janazah Announcement
My dear brothers and sisters, just one quick reminder that Brother Liyaqat did not know that last Ramadan was his last Ramadan. So please, if Allah kept us alive to witness this month of Ramadan, make sure you treat it as if it's your last Ramadan.
Insha'Allah we're going to proceed from this door, and if anybody would like to go to the cemetery you can insha'Allah follow us there, and I'm going to request the family to leave right away please because there are five janazahs at Farmersville today.