Tafsir of Al-Hijr 15:5

When He, Glorified be His Majesty, explained that the destroyed nations each had a specific time appointed for their destruction, and that it was only according to what was written in the Preserved Tablet, He clarified that every nation among them and others has a record that can neither be preceded nor delayed. He, the Exalted, said:

"No nation can precede its term..." This refers to the destroyed nations and others. The min (in "min ummah") is for comprehensiveness (istighraq); it is also said to be for partiality (tab'id), though that is not the preferred view. The term (ajal) written in its record means: their destruction does not arrive before the arrival of their recorded term, nor does a nation pass away before the passing of its term.

As the Imam relayed from al-Khalil, when the verb "precede" (sabq) applies to a temporal object, its meaning is to surpass and leave behind. If you say, "Zayd preceded Amr," it means he surpassed him and left him behind, while Amr fell short and did not reach him. However, when it applies to time, it is the opposite. If you say, "So-and-so preceded such-and-such year," it means he passed away before it arrived and did not reach it. The secret to this, as noted in Irshad al-'Aql al-Salim, is that in physical time, movement and orientation are considered; therefore, that which precedes it is realized before the time itself occurs. As for temporal time, it considers movement and orientation toward the future; thus, the "preceder" is the one that advances toward the destination. Presenting it under the title of "term" (ajal) accounts for what it necessitates of precedence, just as presenting it under the title of "record" (kitab) accounts for what it necessitates of destruction.

"...nor can they delay it." That is, they cannot defer it. The form istif'al (to seek to delay) is used to indicate their incapacity to do so, despite their desire for it. The present tense is preferred in both verbs, following the negation of destruction in the past tense, because the intention is to declare the continuity of these two states for both past and remaining nations. There are parallels to this in the Noble Book.

Attributing these actions to the "nation" (ummah), after attributing the destruction to the "town" (qaryah), is because precedence and delay are states of the nation apart from the town—especially given the generality in the word "nation" to include both the people of those towns and others whose punishments were delayed until the Hereafter. The delay in mentioning their inability to precede [their term], despite the context being one of hyperbole in explaining the certainty of their punishment, is either due to the priority of the concept of precedence in existence or because the intention is to explain the secret of delaying their punishment based on their deserving it.

The verb is brought in the masculine form to observe the meaning of "nation" through the principle of taghlib (dominance), just as the singular form was observed at first to maintain the verse endings (fawasil). For this reason, the preposition and its object were omitted, and the sentence acts as an explanation for what preceded, which is why it is disconnected. The meaning is that the delay of their punishment until the Day of Resurrection, as alluded to, is only because of the delaying of their ordained term, as necessitated by wisdom. Among these reasons is what Allah, the Exalted, knows of the faith of some who will emerge from among them, as stated by the Shaykh al-Islam. The verse is used as evidence that whoever dies or is killed does so only at his appointed time, as the Imam has explained.