“The unbelievers say: ‘When we become dust, we and our forefathers, shall we really be brought out [from our graves]? We were told about this and so were our forefathers before us. But these are no more than fairy tales that have been recounted from ancient times.’ Say: ‘Go about through the earth and see what has been the end of the evil-doers’.”
(Al Qur’ān 27:67-69)
The ayat 27:69 presents two solid arguments in support of the Hereafter along with a piece of sincere advice. The first argument is that every nation that denied the Hereafter in the past inexorably became criminal, immoral, oppressive and corrupt, which in turn brought about their complete destruction. This is a consistent pattern of human history and the ruins of past civilizations testify to the vital relationship between belief in the Hereafter and good conduct. Belief in the Hereafter provides the right direction to human life and its denial, being contrary to Reality, leads to its derailment.
The second argument is historical: past records show that the nations which engage in criminal behaviour, and which become enmeshed in injustice, oppression and corruption are always destroyed. This means that the universe is not governed by forces that are blind and impervious to facts; it rather functions per a wise and immutable law of just reward and punishment which deals with nations purely on the moral plane. This is Law of Retribution.
The ayat advises us to look at the way previous criminals were destroyed and to learn the right lesson from their destruction.