No nation can live beyond its allotted time, or lag behind.
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Tafseer
'Abdullāh Ibn 'Abbās / Muḥammad al-Fīrūzabādī
تفسير : (no nation can outstrip its term) no nation can bring forward the term appointed for its destruction, (nor yet postpone it) to a later date.
Jalāl al-Dīn al-Maḥallī
تفسير : no community can precede its term, by dying before it, nor be deferred, beyond it (the person [in the second verb yasta’khirūna, ‘be deferred’] is masculine, having been feminine [in the first verb tasbiqu, ‘precede’] because this [masculine plural] takes into account the [plural masculine] content [of the term ‘community’]).
