Hūd 11:116-117

"Were there not, among the generations before you, people of remaining worth who would forbid corruption on the earth? Only a few of those We delivered from among them. And those who did wrong pursued the ease they had been pampered with, and became criminals."

Thirty verses earlier, Shuʿayb had said to his people baqiyyatu'llāhi khayrun lakum (11/86). Here the same root (ب-ق-ي) becomes an attribute of human beings: ūlū baqiyya.

This repetition can be verified from the text and lies inside the same sūra.

The lexicographers explain baqiyya here in two ways: (a) a store of reason, of good and of virtue — "the sound part that remains"; (b) the good section left within a community. Both follow from the word's sense of "remaining"; no preference is adopted.

fa-law lā kāna — "were there not?" The lexicographers record this pattern for reproach and regret.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the subject of the sentence: the verse questions the peoples that were destroyed not by way of those who did wrong but by way of those who did not prevent it. And the qualification illā qalīlan mimman anjaynā minhum completes it: those delivered are precisely those who did prevent.

The verb najjaynā (We delivered), repeated five times across the sūra, is here attached to a cause.

وَٱتَّبَعَ ٱلَّذِينَ ظَلَمُوا۟ مَآ أُتْرِفُوا۟ فِيهِ — itrāf (ت-ر-ف): to be pampered in abundance. The root was treated at al-Muʾminūn 23/33 and Sabaʾ 34/34 (mutrafūhā); I rely on that treatment.

And the pattern of the verb is passive: utrifū — "they were pampered". I record this as an observation about the language: they do not build the ease, the ease is given to them; what they do is to pursue it (ittabaʿa).

The qualification in the sentence must be recorded: wa ahluhā muṣliḥūn.

I record this as my own reading: the verse gives the condition of destruction not with the word belief but with the word setting right. And muṣliḥ was Shuʿayb's own description of himself in this sūra: in urīdu illā'l-iṣlāḥa mā'staṭaʿt (11/88).

Three verses thus form a chain:

All three links of the chain lie inside the same sūra and can be verified from the text.