سُبْحَانَ ٱللَّٰهِ
Holy Qur'an
Al-Qur'an
Kids Qur'an
Whereas some of the classical commentators incline to the view that the letters y-s (pronounced ya sin) with which this surah opens belong to the category of the mysterious letter-symbols (al-muqatta'at) introducing a number of Qur'anic chapters (see Appendix II), Abd Allah ibn 'Abbas states that they actually represent two distinct words, namely the exclamatory particle ya ("O") and sin, which in the dialect of the tribe of Tayy' is synonymous with insan ("human being" or "man"): hence, similar to the two syllables ta ha in surah {20}, ya sin denotes "O thou human being!" This interpretation has been accepted by 'Ikrimah, Ad-Dahhak, Al-Hasan al-Basri, Sa'id ibn Jubayr, and other early Qur'an-commentators (see Tabari, Baghawi, Zamakhshari, Baydawi, Ibn Kathir, etc.). According to Zamakhshari, it would seem that the syllable sln is an abbreviation of unaysin, the diminutive form of insan used by the Tayy' in exclamations. (It is to be borne in mind that in classical Arabic a diminutive is often expressive of no more than endearment: e.g., ya bunayya, which does not necessarily signify "O my little son" but, rather, "my dear son" irrespective of the son's age.) On the whole, we may safely assume that the words ya sin apostrophize the Prophet Muhammad, who is explicitly addressed in the sequence, and are meant to stress - as the Qur'an so often does - the fact of his and all other apostles' humanness.
This statement explains the adjurative particle wa (rendered by me as "Consider") at the beginning of the preceding verse - namely: "Let the wisdom apparent in the Qur'an serve as an evidence of the fact that thou art an apostle of God". As regards my rendering of al-qur'an al-haklm as "this Qur'an full of wisdom", see note [2] on 10:1 .
rf 14:50 - "if I am on the right path, it is but by virtue of what my Sustainer reveals unto me".
Cf. {6:131-132}. In the wider sense of this expression, the "forefathers" may be a metonym for a community's cultural past: hence, the reference to those "forefathers" not having been "warned" (i.e., against evil) evidently alludes to the defectiveness of the ethical heritage of people who have become estranged from true moral values.
Lit., "has come true", the past tense indicating the inevitability of its "coming true" - i.e., taking effect.
Zamakhshari: "[This is] an allegory of their deliberate denial of the truth." See note [13] on 13:5 and note [44] on 34:33 .
Sc., "and they cannot see the right way" (Razi); their "forced-up heads" symbolize also their arrogance. On the other hand, God's "placing shackles" around the sinners' necks is a metaphor similar to His "sealing their hearts and their hearing", spoken of in 2:7 and explained in the corresponding note [7]. The same applies to the metaphor of the "barriers" and the "veiling" mentioned in the next verse.
Sc., "so that they can neither advance nor go back": a metaphor of utter spiritual stagnation.
Lit., "who is following the reminder".
As is usual with such passages, the commentators advance various speculations as to the "identity" of the town and the apostles. Since, however, the story is clearly described as a parable, it must be understood as such and not as an historical narrative. It seems to me that we have here an allegory of the three great monotheistic religions, successively propounded by Moses, Jesus and Muhammad, and embodying, essentially, the same spiritual truths. The "township" (qaryah) mentioned in the parable represents, I think, the common cultural environment within which these three religions appeared. The apostles of the first two are said to have been sent "together", implying that the teachings of both were - and are - anchored in one and the same scripture, the Old Testament of the Bible. When, in the course of time, their impact proved insufficient to mould the ethical attitude of the people or peoples concerned, God "strengthened" them by means of His final message, conveyed to the world by the third and last of the apostles, Muhammad.
Cf. 6:91 - "no true understanding of God have they when they say, 'Never has God revealed anything unto man.'" See also 34:31 and the corresponding note [38]. Both these passages, as well as the one above, allude to people who like to think of themselves as "believing" in God without, however, allowing their "belief" to interfere in the practical concerns of their lives: and this they justify by conceding to religion no more than a vaguely emotional role, and by refusing to admit the fact of objective revelation - for the concept of revelation invariably implies a promulgation by God, of absolute moral values and, thus, a demand for one's self-surrender to them.
For an explanation of the phrase tatayyarna bikum, see surah {7}, note [95].
Cf. 17:13 - "every human being's destiny (ta'ir) have We tied to his neck" - and the corresponding note [17].
For this rendering of musrifun (sing. musrif), see note [21] on the last sentence of 10:1
I.e., by the apostles or, more probably (in view of the allegorical character of this story), by his own insight. The intervention of the man who "came running from the farthest end of the city" is evidently a parable of the truly believing minority in every religion, and of their desperate, mostly unavailing endeavours to convince their erring fellow-men that God-consciousness alone can save human life from futility.
Lit., "Oh, the regrets upon the bondmen" (al-'ibad) - since all human beings, good or bad, are God's "bondmen". This phrase alludes to the Day of Judgment - which is described in 19:39 as "the Day of Regrets" - as well as to the fact, repeatedly stressed in the Qur'an, that most human beings choose to remain deaf to the voice of truth, and thus condemn themselves to spiritual death.
I.e., to the people now living. As in many other Qur'anic passages, the term qarn, which literally signifies a "generation" or "people living at the same period", has in this context the wider meaning of "society", or "civilization" in the historical connotation of these terms. Thus, the downfall and utter disappearance of past societies and civilizations is here linked to their spiritual frivolity and consequent moral failure. A further lesson to be drawn from this parable is the implied conclusion that the majority of people in every society, at all times (our own included), refuse to be guided by moral considerations, regarding them as opposed to their conventional mode of life and their pursuit of materialistic values - with the result that "never has an apostle come to them without their deriding him".
Lit., "who has created all the pairs out of whatever the earth produces, and out of themselves, and out of that of which they have no knowledge": a reference to the polarity evident in all creation, both animate and inanimate, which expresses itself in the existence of antithetic and yet complementary forces, like the sexuality in human beings, animals and plants, light and darkness, heat and cold, positive and negative magnetism and electricity, the positive and negative charges (protons and electrons) in the structure of the atom, and so forth. (It is to be borne in mind that the noun zawj denotes both "a pair" and "one of a pair", as explained in note [7] on {13:3.}) The mention of "that of which they have no knowledge" evidently relates to things or phenomena not yet understood by man but potentially within the range of his comprehension: hence my interpolation, between brackets, of the words "as yet".
In the generally-accepted reading, this phrase is spelled li-mustagarrin laha, which may be rendered as above or, more conventionally, as "to its point of rest", i.e., the time (or point) of the daily sunset (Razi). However, Abd Allah ibn Masud is reliably reported to have read these words as la mustaqarra laha (Zamakhshari), which gives us the meaning of "it runs [on its course] without having any rest", i.e., unceasingly.
This is, in a condensed form, the meaning of the noun 'urjun - the raceme of the date-palm, which, when old and dry, becomes slender and curves like a crescent (cf. Lane V, 1997).
Lit., "nor does the night outrun [or "outstrip"] the day".
Lit., "in the laden ship": a generic singular with a plural significance. The term "offspring" denotes here the human race as a whole (cf. the recurring expression "children of Adam").
Cf. 16:8 and the corresponding note [6]. In both of these passages man's ingenuity is shown to be a direct manifestation of God's creativeness.
For an explanation of this rendering of the above phrase, see surah {2}, note [247]. In the present instance it apparently denotes men's conscious doings as well as their unconscious or half-conscious motivations.
Or: "no sign of their Sustainer's signs" - since the noun ayah, repeated several times in the preceding passage, denotes "a message" as well as "a sign".
In Qur'anic usage, the verb anfaqa (lit., "he spent") invariably signifies one's spending on others, or for the good of others, whatever the motive. The ethical importance of this "spending on others" is frequently stressed in the Qur'an, and is embodied in the concept of zakah, which denotes "purifying dues" or, in its broader sense, "charity" (see note [34] on 2:43 ).
Lit., "they wait for nothing but a single blast...", etc.
In the Qur'anic descriptions of paradise, the term zill ("shade") and its plural zilal is often used as a metaphor for "happiness" - thus, for instance, in 4:57 , where zill zalil signifies "happiness abounding" (see surah {4}, note [74]) - while the "couches" on which the blessed are to recline are obviously a symbol of inner fulfilment and peace of mind, as pointed out by Razi in his comments on 18:31 and 55:54 .
This composite expression is, I believe, the nearest approach in English to the concept of salam in the above context. For a further explanation of this term, see note [29] on 5:16 , where salam is rendered as "salvation".
For the meaning of what the Qur'an describes as "worship of Satan", see note [33] on 19:44 .
The phrase "This, then, is the hell" points to the fact that the sinners' realization of their having gone astray despite repeated warnings by the prophets will, in itself, be a source of intense suffering ('adhab) in the life to come. The element of repetition or persistence is implied in the use of the auxiliary verb kuntum both here and in the next verse.
A metaphor for their being unable really to excuse or defend their past actions and attitudes.
Lit., "We could surely have effaced their eyes": a metaphor for "We could have created them morally blind" and, thus, devoid of all sense of moral responsibility - which, in its turn, would constitute a negation of all spiritual value in human life as such. (Cf. 2:20 - "if God so willed, He could indeed take away their hearing and their sight".)
In this instance - as, e.g., in 20:96 - the verb basura ("he became seeing" or "he saw") is obviously used in its tropical sense of "perceiving [something] mentally". According to Ibn 'Abbas, as quoted by Tabari, the phrase anna yubsirun signifies "how could they perceive the truth".
Lit., "transformed [or "transmuted"] them".
I.e., if it had been God's will that men should have no freedom of will or moral choice, He would have endowed them from the very beginning with a spiritually and morally stationary nature, entirely rooted in their instincts ("in their places"), devoid of all urge to advance, and incapable either of positive development or of retreat from a wrong course.
I.e., man should never postpone his exercise of moral choice - for if human beings are superior creatures inasmuch as they have been endowed with the faculty of discernment and a wide measure of free will, let them also remember that "man has been created weak" ( 4:28 ) and liable to decline still further in old age, so that the time at his disposal is short.
This passage resumes the theme enunciated in the opening verses of this surah, namely, the revelation of the Qur'an. As in 26:224 , we have here an allusion to the allegation of Muhammad's opponents, in his own as well as in later times, that what he described as divine revelation was in reality an outcome of his own poetic invention. This the Qur'an refutes by alluding to the fundamental difference between poetry - especially Arabic poetry - and divine revelation as exemplified by the Qur'an: whereas in the former the meaning is often subordinated to the rhythm and the melody of language, in the Qur'an the exact opposite is the case, inasmuch as here the choice of words, their sound and their position in the sentence - and, hence, its rhythm and melody - are always subordinated to the meaning intended. (Cf. also 26:225 and the corresponding note [100].)
For this composite rendering of the adjective mubin, see surah {12}, note [2]. Literally, the above phrase reads, "a reminder and a [divine] discourse...". etc., with the conjunctive particle wa ("and") being used here, as in 15:1 , to point out that the Qur'an is an integral element in the process of divine revelation.
Lit., "may come [or "be proved"] true", i.e., on the Day of Judgment (cf. verse {7} of this surah ).
I.e., "which We alone have or could have created" (Zamakhshari and Razl). The above metaphorical expression is based on the concept of "handiwork" in its widest sense, abstract as well as concrete.
Lit., "made them submissive (dhallalnaha ) to them": implying also that man is morally responsible for the manner in which he uses or misuses them.
Or: "other deities beside God" - alluding, in either case, to objects of worship consciously conceived as such - i.e., idols, imaginary deities, deified persons, saints, etc. - as well as to abstract concepts like power, wealth or "luck", which may not be consciously "worshipped" but are nevertheless often revered in an almost idolatrous fashion. The verb ittakhadhu (lit., "they took [or "have taken"] for themselves"), used in the Qur'an in this and in similar contexts, is particularly suited for the wide range of meanings alluded to inasmuch as it bears the connotation of adopting something - whether it be concrete or abstract - for one's own use or adoration.
Lit.. "them".
See similar passage in 16:4 , as well as the corresponding note [5]. Completing the interpretation advanced in his (and Zamakhshari's) commentary on the above-mentioned verse, Razi equates here the term khasim (lit., "contender in argument") with the highest manifestation of what is described as natiq ("articulate [or "rational"] being").
Lit., "he coins for Us a simile (mathal)" - an elliptic allusion to the unwillingness of "those who deny the truth" to conceive of a transcendental Being, fundamentally different from all that is graspable by man's senses or imagination, and having powers beyond all comparison with those which are available to any of the created beings. (Cf. 42:11 , "there is nothing like unto Him", and 112:4 , "there is nothing that could be compared with Him".) Since they are enmeshed in a materialistic outlook on life, such people deny - as the sequence shows - all possibility of resurrection, which amounts to a denial of God's creative powers and, in the final analysis, of His existence.
Cf. the ancient Arabian proverb, "In every tree there is a fire" (Zamakhshari): evidently an allusion to the metamorphosis of green - i e., water-containing - plants into fuel, be it through desiccation or man-made carbonization (charcoal), or by a millenial, subterranean process of decomposition into oil or coal. In a spiritual sense, this "fire" seems also to symbolize the God-given warmth and light of human reason spoken of in verse {77} above.
This is the meaning of the phrase innama amruhu - the term amr being synonymous, in this instance, with sha'n ("state [or "manner"] of being"). The exclusiveness of God's creative Being is stressed by the restrictive particle innama.