Rise & Fall of Nations
Allah سبحانه وتعالى has bestowed upon each individual and each nation countless blessings on the basis of which the nations are allowed to progress. As long as a nation remains thankful to Allah سبحانه وتعالى by being righteous, the people of that nation continue to benefit from the blessings of Allah سبحانه وتعالى. However, if the people start changing their behavior and become thankless by openly indulging into sinful deeds, Allah سبحانه وتعالى also decides to withdraw His blessings from them, and the nation starts to go into a state of deterioration.
Generally, the corruption in a nation starts from within its influential and well-off segments of the society and the commoners start to follow their leaders by accepting this as a venue of making progress. Allah سبحانه وتعالى does not decide to punish any nation unless He warns the people through His messengers. If people continue to persist on their disobedience and pay no heed to the warnings, rather start making a mockery of the message, a decision to punish the nation is made. Generally, however, the nations of the past have been subjected to warning punishments lest they would decide to repent and change their lifestyle. If despite repeated warnings, a nation showed no sign of backing-off from their disobedience, a final decision to destroy them was made by Allah سبحانه وتعالى. Once Allah سبحانه وتعالى makes a final decision to destroy a nation, there is no power in the world who can save such people.
It has been made very clear in The Holy Quran that the destruction of a nation by the orders of Allah سبحانه وتعالى is a complete just decision as their destruction is purely the result of their intentional stubbornness and persistence on bad deeds.