The Quran

Preface

فَقالوا رَبَّنا باعِد بَينَ أَسفارِنا وَظَلَموا أَنفُسَهُم فَجَعَلناهُم أَحاديثَ وَمَزَّقناهُم كُلَّ مُمَزَّقٍ ۚ إِنَّ في ذٰلِكَ لَآياتٍ لِكُلِّ صَبّارٍ شَكورٍ

Yusuf Ali

But they said:¹ “Our Lord! Place longer distances between our journey- stages”:² but they wronged themselves (therein). At length We made them as a tale (that is told),³ and We dispersed them all in scattered fragments. Verily in this are Signs for every (soul that is) patiently constant and grateful.

Said, in this and other places in the Qur-ān, “language” is used for thought or deed. The Commentators call it the “Language of actual facts” (zaban hal) as opposed to the “language of words” (zaban qal).
The covetous Saba' people, in order to get more profit from travellers’ supplies by concentrating them on a few stations which they could monopolise, tended to choke off traffic and ruin the big trade. Selfishness often runs counter to true self-interest. It is a historical fact that the great Yemen-Syria route in Arabia declined with the decline of Yemen. There were no doubt physical causes, but supreme above all were the moral causes, the grasping nature of the people, and their departure from the highest standards of righteousness.
The people of Saba were given every chance. They had prosperity, skill, trade and commerce, and a healthy and beautiful country. They also had, apparently, great virtues, and as long as they remained true to their virtues, i.e., to the Law of God, they remained happy and contented. But when they became covetous and selfish, and became jealous of other people’s prosperity instead of rejoicing in it, they fell from grace and declined. It may be that the climate changed, the rainfall became scantier, perhaps on account of the cutting down of hill forests: trade routes changed, on account of the people falling off in the virtues that make men popular: behind all the physical causes was the root-cause, that they began to worship mammon, self, greed, or materialism. They fell into the snare of Satan. They gradually passed out of history, and became only a name in a story. Moral: it is only God’s Mercy that can give true happiness or prosperity, and happiness or prosperity is only a snare unless used for the highest service of God and man.