wrong people in the least, but people wrong themselves. Thus, sins are a cause of destruction, devastation, and corruption, as Allah, Mighty and Majestic, says: ﴿Corruption has spread on land and sea because of what people’s hands have earned, so that He may cause them to taste some of what they have done, that perhaps they may return.﴾ [al-Rūm: 41]. Allah Most High also says: ﴿Whenever We intend to destroy a town, We command its affluent ones, but they defiantly disobey therein; the decree is thus justified against it, and We utterly destroy it.﴾ [al-Isrā’: 16]. And Allah Most High says, addressing the noblest of creation and the best generation: ﴿Why is it that, when a calamity befell you—though you had inflicted twice as much—you said, “How did this happen?” Say, “It is from your own selves.”﴾ [Āl ‘Imrān: 165]. A person, then, is afflicted with calamities on account of his own deeds. Hence He says: ﴿So their Lord crushed them for their sin﴾—that is, because of their sin. ﴿And levelled them all﴾ means that He encompassed them all in destruction until not one of them remained, and they lay lifeless in their dwellings. ﴿And He does not fear its consequences﴾ means that Allah does not fear the consequences of punishing these people, nor does He fear any reprisals from them, for sovereignty belongs to Him and everything is in His Hand. This is unlike other kings: if they vanquish or punish others, you find them fearful, apprehensive that the tide may turn against them. Allah, Glorious and Exalted, however, does not fear its consequences—that is, He does not fear the consequences of punishing them—because all sovereignty and all praise belong to Him. Glorified and Exalted is He! How magnificent He is, and how majestic His authority!