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Quotes from other scholars{{Quote|Marshall, David. God, Muhammad and the Unbelievers (p. 53). Taylor & Francis. Kindle Edition.|If Muhammad again and again holds before the eyes of his Meccan fellow people the fate of earlier nations as a warning example … the intention can only have been to threaten them with a similar fate, referring to a punishment on Earth and not only in the Hereafter. (Horovitz 1926, p.30) There is no doubt that Muhammad proclaimed the imminence of a special and particular judgement upon the Meccans. (Bell 1926, p.121)}}(early Meccan period quote{{Quote|Marshall, David. God, Muhammad and the Unbelievers (pp. 49-50). Taylor & Francis. Kindle Edition.|The first point to make is simply the observation that by the end of the earliest Meccan period the Qurʾan has repeatedly narrated accounts of past acts of divine punishment in this world, which it makes clear are meant to serve as a warning to the unbelievers in Mecca. On the slender evidence available in this period it is difficult to prove that these passages implied a threat to the Meccans in this life rather than on the Last Day, but prima facie that would seem to be their message. At 79:25 we have already seen how the Qurʾan distinguishes between God’s eschatological and this-worldly punishment of unbelievers, a distinction which recurs later (e.g. 32:21; 39:26). This indicates that, although they are related, the two types of punishment are not identical. It would thus seem natural to assume that when the Qurʾan warns the Meccan unbelievers with accounts of divine punishment in this world, the primary reference is to the possibility of the recurrence of the same kind of this-worldly punishment, an event within a human history which continues thereafter, rather than the eschatological culmination of that history.}}Main academic works on this inc Marshall, David. God, Muhammad and the Unbelievers, Durie, Mark. Biblical Reflexes in the Qur'an: Investigations into the Genesis of a Religion Chapters 2 & 3.{{Quote|{{Quran|89|6-14}}|89:6–14 Have you not seen how your Lord dealt with ʿĀd, Iram of the pillars, the like of which was never created in the land, and Thamūd who hollowed the rocks in the valley, and Pharaoh, he of the tent-pegs, who all were insolent in the land and worked much corruption therein? Your Lord unloosed on them a scourge of punishment; surely your Lord is ever on the watch.}}{{Quote|{{Quran|53|50-54}}|53:50–4 [God] destroyed ʿĀd, the ancient, and Thamūd, and he did not spare them, and the people of Noah before - they did exceeding evil and were insolent - and the subverted city he also overthrew, so that there covered it that which covered.}}{{Quote|Hoyland, Robert G.. Arabia and the Arabs: From the Bronze Age to the Coming of Islam (Peoples of the Ancient World) (p. 223). Taylor & Francis. Kindle Edition.|It would appear from the audience’s reaction that these were well-known stories, and indeed all are either famous Biblical narratives (Noah and the Flood, Abraham the religious reformer, Moses and Pharaoh, Lot and licentiousness) or Arabian traditions that had already achieved, judging from the allusions to them in pre-Islamic Arabic poetry, legendary status. In the Quran all are constrained into one genre, the punishment story, and adduced as examples of how God vents his wrath upon those who fail to heed his warnings.}}Threatened to Mecca as well{{Quote|{{Quran|41|13}}|But if they [the unbelievers] turn away, then say, ‘I warn you of a thunderbolt like to the thunderbolt of ʿĀd and Thamūd.’}}

It could be argued that there is no randomness or natural law in the Qur'an, but rather every single thing is determined and given by God/Allah. For example the famous Muslim theologian and philosopher Al-Ghazali,  ''in his work entitled “On Power,” argues that all of the events that occur in this world, whether sensed or not, are caused by one being: Allah (hereafter referred to as “god”). He even goes so far as to suggest that there is no true connection between what people would traditionally call causes and effects''.<ref>Garber, Christopher P. (2016) "Al-Ghazali on Causation, Omnipotence, and Human Freedom," Quaerens Deum: The Liberty Undergraduate Journal for Philosophy of Religion: Vol. 2 : Iss. 1 , Article 4. Available at: <nowiki>https://digitalcommons.liberty.edu/lujpr/vol2/iss1/</nowiki>