وَمَآ أَهْلَكْنَا مِن قَرْيَةٍ إِلَّا وَلَهَا كِتَابٌ مَّعْلُومٌ
Wa maaa ahlaknaa min qaryatin illaa wa lahaa kitaabum ma'loom
Yok ettiğimiz herhangi bir kasabanın elbette belli bir yazısı vardır.
Never have we destroyed a town except that it had a known decree.
The word for what each town had is kitāb, a writing, the same noun this surah uses three verses earlier for the Book being recited. The unit being reckoned with is the qarya, a settlement, so the accounting is of a whole community rather than of the people inside it one by one. Ma'lūm, known, states that the term is known to God while saying nothing about who else knows it.