The Triumphal Arch of Palmyra in Syria. The ruins of ancient civilizations scattered around the desert, rural, and urban landscapes of the Near East provide a visual complement to the Qur’an’s repeated emphasis on the theme of ubi sunt – the urgent necessity for its audience to take heed and remember the fate of previous generations and communities, both those that followed divine guidance and were saved and those that did not and suffered a harsh fate. In a bitter irony, the Arch was destroyed in October 2015 by ISIS, who interpret such sites only as reminders of polytheism (picture courtesy Wikimedia Commons)