Allah Most High also says:

“Have they not travelled through the land and seen how those before them met their end? They were more numerous than them, mightier in strength, and left greater traces upon the land.”

The passage continues to His words:

“Such is Allah’s established way with His servants. And there the disbelievers lost.”

He thus tells us that the nations who rejected the messengers believed when they saw the punishment, but that their faith did not benefit them at that point. This is Allah’s established way with His servants.

This agrees with what Allah says to Pharaoh:

“Now, when you had disobeyed before and were one of the corrupters?”

This address is a rhetorical question expressing rejection: “Do you believe now, when you had disobeyed before?” He thereby denies that this faith could be beneficial or accepted. Whoever says that it was beneficial and accepted has contradicted the explicit text of the Quran and Allah’s established way with His servants.

This is further clarified by the fact that, had his faith been accepted at that point, it would have spared him the punishment, just as it spared the people of Jonah. When their faith was accepted, they were allowed to enjoy life for a time. His drowning was a punishment for his disbelief; if he were not a disbeliever, he would not deserve punishment.

His words after this:

“Today We will save your body so that you may be a sign for those who come after you,”

call upon those who come after him to take heed. Had he died a believer, the destruction and drowning of a believer would not have served as such a warning.

Furthermore, when Ibn Masʿūd told the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, that Abū Jahl had been killed, he said:

“This is the Pharaoh of this nation.”

Thus, the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, likened the leader of the disbelievers who rejected him to the leader of the disbelievers who rejected Moses.