26 Preface أَوَلَم يَهدِ لَهُم كَم أَهلَكنا مِن قَبلِهِم مِنَ القُرونِ يَمشونَ في مَساكِنِهِم ۚ إِنَّ في ذٰلِكَ لَآياتٍ ۖ أَفَلا يَسمَعونَYusuf AliDoes it not teach them a lesson, how many generations We destroyed before them, in whose dwellings they (now) go to and fro?1 Verily in that are Signs: Do they not then listen?2If a nation gone astray could only learn from the history of earlier nations that were destroyed for their evil! They could see vestiges of them in their daily goings to and fro: the Jews could see vestiges of the Philistines, Amalekites, etc. in Palestine, and the pagan Arabs, of the ‘Ād and Thamūd in Arabia.Listen: i.e., listen to the warnings conveyed in God’s Signs. Notice how naturally the transition is effected from the physical to the spiritual-from the ruined physical vestiges of ungodly nations on this earth to the more intangible signs conveyed by History and Revelation. Here the sense of Hearing is mentioned, both in its physical and its metaphysical or spiritual aspect. In the next verse the sense of Sight is mentioned in both aspects.