Al-Isrā’ 17:58

The issue

This verse forewarns that every city will face perdition before the “day of judgment”. Muslim exegetes state that all towns will either be subject to utter destruction or that killing and suffering with overtake them, including Mecca. It is still thought that the Abyssinians (today’s Ethiopians) will destroy Mecca and that Medina will be overtaken by famine.

This vision of the destiny of the world (the destruction of all cities) is not tied to any human disobedience or considered a view of how the world would end. It is merely a divine decree with no justification for it. What is the reason behind the destruction of all the cities—including Mecca and Medina? Perhaps this last image—the destruction of Muslim strongholds—colors the opinions of Muslim scholars who explain that this doom will only affect the cities of the infidels and will come in one of two forms: “[1] Either completely rooting out every city’s inhabitants, which is meant by being subject to perdition, or [2] the severe torture or killing of each city’s leaders, replacing them with Muslim rulers, and taking them [the infidel inhabitants] captive, seizing [their] wealth, and taking the jizya [from them]”.

Questions: (1) Why did Muhammad not explain the intended meaning of the verse so Islamic commentators would not have to offer incongruous explanations? (2) If the first explanation is to be accepted (perdition), for what reason did Allah decide in his eternal decree that destruction should befall the cities? (3) If the second explanation is to be accepted, does that mean Allah gives Muslims the right (as jihadist terrorist groups claim) to destroy the non-Muslim towns by torturing, capturing, and killing the inhabitants and seizing their assets, or taxing them if they let them remain?