al-Ḥijr 15:4-5

Wa mā ahlaknā min qaryatin illā wa lahā kitābun maʿlūm · Mā tasbiqu min ummatin ajalahā wa mā yastaʾkhirūn

"Every town We destroyed had a known writing. · No community can outrun its term, nor can they hold it back."

The attribute will occur four times in the sūra (4, 21, 38, and in 44 on the same pattern as maqsūm); it was set out in a table in the section on the structure.

Its use here must be recorded: kitāb and maʿlūm side by side. The word comes not as the name of a document but as a determinedness.

And the pattern of the sentence is a ḥaṣr: wa mā ahlaknā… illā… — without exception. That is, destruction, however sudden it may appear, carries a time.

The sentence is negated in two directions at once: it can neither go ahead nor fall behind.

And a point of word order must be recorded: the first verb is feminine singular (tasbiqu — for umma), the second masculine plural (yastaʾkhirūn).

I record this as an observation about the language: the sentence begins with the word umma (a community — feminine), then passes to the persons who make up the community (plural). That is, the term is attached first to the community, then to the individuals.

The same sentence occurs at al-Aʿrāf 7/34 and Yūnus 10/49 as well; these sūras have not yet been treated in the index, and I record only the places where they occur.