137قَد خَلَت مِن قَبلِكُم سُنَنٌ فَسيروا فِي الأَرضِ فَانظُروا كَيفَ كانَ عاقِبَةُ المُكَذِّبينَMuhammad Asad[MANY] WAYS of life have passed away before your time.1 Go, then, about the earth and behold what happened in the end to those who gave the lie to the truth:The word sunnah (of which sunan is the plural) denotes a "way of life" or "conduct" (hence its application, in Islamic terminology, to the way of life of the Prophet as an example for his followers). In the above passage, the term sunan refers to the "conditions (ahwal) characteristic of past centuries" (Razi), in which, despite all the continuous changes, an ever-recurring pattern can be discerned: a typically Qur'anic reference to the possibility, and necessity, of learning from man's past experiences.