The following is excerpted Shaykh Hamzah Abdul Malik’s The Endless Banquet, Volume III, as well as from Imam al-Qushayri’s Tafsir of Surah al-Waqi’ah, which will be published in full as part of IGI’s Tafsir Reimagined series.
Introduction and Thematic Explanation
In the surahs leading up to Surah Ya Sin, Allah gives us extensive proofs and signs of the Day of Judgment. In Surah al-Fatir, He also mentions that the disbelievers claim that they would believe in a message from Allah only if they had a real Messenger sent to them. Allah responds to this in Surah Ya Sin by addressing the heart of the matter: the legitimacy of the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ as a Messenger, and how disbelievers lie to themselves about why they don’t believe in him.
Allah introduces this topic by showing us how the opponents of Prophet Muhammad ﷺ have completely shut themselves off from using reason. If they really had any sincerity or belief in the unseen, they would have followed his guidance.
He gives us the example of the town to which He sent three Messengers. Not only were they given multiple Messengers to guide them, but they also had a righteous man from among the people of the town who testified to the validity of their message. Despite all of the guidance and reason that they received, the people of the town still rejected it. Not only did they reject the message, but they murdered the local man who accepted the Messengers.
This story shows us that when people decide not to believe in Allah’s message, it is simply out of their arrogance. Allah could send a nation multiple messengers with unique miracles at the same time, and that would do nothing but push the disbelievers further in their defiance. As for the believers who make sacrifices to spread the truth, they will find that their efforts will be graciously rewarded, and they will have no regrets for taking a stand for Allah in this world. Whatever they lose for Allah’s sake now, will become insignificant when they see the reward Allah has in store for them as a result of their sacrifice; just like the man who was killed, as we learned earlier in the surah.
Regarding Allah’s signs, He gives us numerous examples from His creation. These include, but are not limited to how He revitalizes the earth’s water for our benefit, how He made everything in pairs to allow for reproduction, the courses of the Sun and the Moon, and the buoyancy of ships in water.
While the beginning of Surah Ya Sin gives general descriptions of disbelievers, believers, and an example of how adamant disbelievers can be, the rest of Surah Ya Sin focuses on revealing the signs of Allah’s power and His ability to create. He also gives us more insight on the trials of the Day of Judgment and the state of disbelievers therein.
Regarding Allah’s signs, He gives us numerous examples of His creation. These include, but are not limited to:
how He revitalizes the earth’s water for our benefit
how He made everything in pairs to allow for reproduction
the courses of the Sun and the Moon
the buoyancy of ships in water.
All of these signs point to the fact that Allah has made this earth in a way that supports all the needs of humanity, and this unified purpose is due to the Oneness of the Creator.
In fact, upon deeper reflection, one would realize that all of these favors that Allah has bestowed upon us must require some form of accountability that matches the magnitude of the favor. Allah did not create all of this for us so that we would reject His existence. Rather, He created it so that we may fulfill our purpose: to worship and serve Him. Failure to do that, or at the very least acknowledge that it is our true purpose, will result in a terrible outcome in the Hereafter.
This is why Allah follows these signs with a description of the state of disbelievers and believers in the Hereafter. The disbelievers will find themselves unable to justify their disbelief, as even their own limbs will testify against them. We know this is easy for Allah because He shows us that, at any moment, He can cause our limbs to stop working.
Similarly, the earth and environment itself could be changed so that it no longer works in our favor. If this happened, who would the disbelievers call to save them? Obviously, this proves that they have innate knowledge of Allah, but they refuse to acknowledge it. In the end, once they return to Him, they will have no choice but to accept His existence. Unfortunately, at that point, it will be too late.
Tafsir of Verses 1-33
His (How majestic is His mention) words:
{In the Name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful}
“In the Name of Allah is a verse with which He has begun His address. Thus, if someone learns it, his reward is increased; if someone becomes acquainted with it, his supplication is more likely to receive a response; and if someone magnifies its value, his final abode will be nobler.
His (How majestic is His mention) words:
{(1) YaSin (2) By the Wise Qur’an}.
It is said that the meaning [of YaSin] is “O, Master!” It has also been said that the Ya’ indicates the day of the primordial covenant, and the Sin indicates His secret amongst His lovers. So, it is as if He is saying, “[I swear by] the reality of the day of the primordial covenant, by My secret amongst My lovers; and by the Wise Qur’an.”
His (How majestic is His mention) words:
{(3) Indeed, you are of the Messengers (4) Upon a Straight Path}.
In other words, “O, Muhammad! You are one of the Messengers; and you are indeed upon a Straight path.”
His (How majestic is His mention) words:
{(5) A revelation from the ‘Aziz, the Rahim}.
In other words, “This Book is a revelation from the ‘Aziz, the Rahim”. ‘Aziz means the One who possesses all greatness and stands in no need of the obedience of the obedient. The Rahim means the One who favors His believing servants.
His (How majestic is His mention) words:
{(6) To warn a people whose forefathers had not been warned, who are unaware}.
We have chosen you with this Qur’an, and we sent this Criterion down upon you in order for you to warn a people who have come in a time devoid of Prophethood, and whose forefathers passed away in that state.
His (How majestic is His mention) words:
{(7) The word has been proven against most of them, thus they will not believe}.
The sentence of punishment has been proven to be just against most of them because they are resolute in their denial of the truth and entrenched in their ignorance. Thus, what is known of them and what has been decreed upon them is that they will not believe.
His (How majestic is His mention) words:
{And their traces} (12) refers to the steps people take to the Mosques, their standing upon the carpet of intimate conversation with God, the path of their tears over the surface of their cheeks, and the ascent of their breaths.
{(8) We have placed yokes upon their necks, that reach up to their chins, making them hold their head high}.
We will perpetuate them in their dejection and lowliness. Then, We will make them taste the evil consequences of their affair.
His (How majestic is His mention) words:
{(9) We have placed before them a barrier and behind them a barrier. Thus, We have veiled them so that they do not see}.
We have engrossed them, in this life, in the ocean of misguidance, and We have surrounded them in the canopy of ignorance. In the Hereafter, We will immerse them in the Fire and punishment and We will constrict their state through yokes and chains. {We have veiled them} in this world, We have made them blind from witnessing the evidences. In the Hereafter, We will obscure the aim for them. Thus, they will remain buried in the depths of Hell. There they will abide, abandoned in its agonizing intensity. They are cast out and cursed. We will never put an end to the punishment they endure, nor will We have compassion for them for that of which they complain. They were content with the degradation of disbelief and were encircled by the canopy of wretchedness; thus, the mark of remoteness [from the mercy of God] was placed upon them.
His (How majestic is His mention) words:
{(10) And it is the same for them, whether you warn them or do not warn them, they will not believe}.
If someone abandons the truth, no one can reach him. If he rejects the truth, no one can turn him. If the Divine Will has broken someone and the Divine Decree has lowered him, no counsel will affect him.
His (How majestic is His mention) words:
{(11) You only warn he who follows the reminder and fears the Most Merciful in his hidden states. Give him glad tidings of forgiveness and a generous reward}.
Your warning will only benefit he who follows the reminder. Though your reminder is universally applicable to, and upon, everyone, those who disbelieve will persist in their folly. How evil is that which they decide? Even if they do not recognize the ugliness of their actions.
As for those who follow the reminder, meditate on it and benefit from that which they hear from you, they have made it incumbent upon you to give them glad tidings. So, give them glad tidings, and inform them in such a way that they will manifest happiness at that of which you have informed them. {(A) generous reward} refers to a great and abundant reward for their actions, even if they are deficient.
His (How majestic is His mention) words:
{(12) It is certainly We who bring the dead to life and We record that which they send forth and their traces. We have recorded everything in a clear record}.
We give life to hearts that have died of hardness, by raining down upon them acceptance and nearness, and We record the deeds they send forth. {And their traces} refers to the steps that they take to the Mosques, their standing upon the carpet of intimate conversation with Us, the path their tears take over the surface of their cheeks, and the ascent of their breaths.
{And We bring out from it grain from which they eat} (33) Allah (Blessed is He) repeatedly addressed the resurrection. He (Blessed is He) struck a similitude for it, in many verses, of the resurrection of the earth with plants.
{And We have recorded everything in a clear record} We have affirmed everything in detail on the Preserved Tablet. We did not do that because We would have forgotten it. Such a thing is inconceivable when We have enumerated the number of all things. However, We wanted to record the traces of our lovers in the hidden realms of our Book.
His (How majestic is His mention) words:
{(13) And strike for them the similitude of the people of the town, when Our Messengers came to them}.
Their [the people of the town]’s era has passed, and their time and situation has been forgotten. However, We are mentioning their states after the passing of their time because We do not prefer that our beloveds and the tongues of our Saints fail to mention the absent and those who have passed on.
This person says, describing people:
Since people forget their brothers,
And affection is betrayed by its brother,
I have written down my brothers,
In a record so that I can remember them.
{(14) When We sent two (Messengers to them). But they rejected them both. So, We strengthened them with a third. They said, “We have been sent as Messengers to you”}.
His (How majestic is His mention) words:
{(15-16) They said: You are only men like us. The Most Merciful hasn’t revealed anything. You are only lying. They said: Our Lord knows that we have been sent to you as Messengers}.
We only know that which we have been commanded to convey and the warning that we have been commanded to deliver.
{(17) And our responsibility is but to convey the message clearly}.
His (How majestic is His mention) words:
{(18) They said: We regard you as an ill-omen. If you do not desist, we swear that we will stone you and you will receive from us a painful punishment}.
We shall stone you and we will do such and such a(n) (evil) thing. The Messengers responded to them, “Indeed, because of your ignorance and denial of the truth, you will soon meet that which you have been promised.”
His (How majestic is His mention) words:
{(19) They said: Your ill-omen is from yourselves. (Is this how you respond) when you are being reminded; Indeed, you are a transgressing people}.
Shaykh Hamzah Abdul Malik’s The Endless Banquet is a thematic explanation of the Qur’an suitable for everyday reading.
His (How majestic is His mention) words:
{(20-21) Then a man came running, from the furthest part of the city, saying: My people! Follow the Messengers. Follow those who do not ask of you any wage; who are guided}.
Even though the man in this story came from a small town, it was called a city. Allah said he came from the furthest part of the city, even though its closest and furthest parts wouldn’t have been very far apart.
He (Blessed is He) has made it His practice to multiply the small deeds of His slaves with whom He is satisfied, and He makes a little into a lot, through His Grace, when He gives to him or grants him anything.
{Follow those who do not ask of you any wage}. He delivered his sermon, and he sincerely advised them. It is said:
How much counsel have I cast at your feet,
Yet it has only caused hatred of the adviser.
Since he was sincere in his state, bore patiently the rejection he met from his people and resorted to repentance, He caused him to enjoy his most excellent grace and covered him in the canopy of His acceptance. Thus, he found the gentle mercy and grace that his Lord had promised him.
{(22-25) How should I not worship the One who has fashioned me, to whom you will be returned? Should I take as gods anything other than Him? If the Most Merciful wished to harm me, their intercession would not benefit me in the slightest, nor would they be able to save me. Indeed, I would then be in evident waywardness. Indeed, I have believed in your Lord; so listen}.
His (How majestic is His mention) words:
{(26-27) It was said: Enter Paradise. He said: I wish that my people knew how my Lord had forgiven me and made me of the honored people}.
He wished that his people would know his state and Allah made his hope a reality. He informed them of his state. He sent an address down regarding his state so that his people would know it. He only wished for that as an act of kindness, hoping that they would thereby do as he had done, so that they would receive that which he received.
His (How majestic is His mention) words:
{(28-29) And We did not send down upon his people, after him, any army from the heavens. Nor would We have sent any. It was only a single screech and behold they were extinguished}.
A recording of the beloved Qari, the late Nourin Muhammad Siddiq, reciting from Surah Ya Sin, verses 28-58 in salat
We had but to decree that they be punished, changing the state of security they enjoyed into that of affliction.
His (How majestic is His mention) words:
{(30) How pitiful those servants. No Messenger came to them except that they mocked them}.
If they do not regret in this life, they will be in the abode of regret. That is because they became encroached in the singular way of denial, disobeying the Messengers and oppressing His (Blessed is He) Saints.
His (How majestic is His mention) words:
{(31-32) Have they not considered how many generations We destroyed before them- that they will not return to them. Yet, indeed, they will all be presented before us}.
Do they not consider what We did before them, with the past generations, or how We treated the past nations? Not one of them has returned to them. All of them, without exception, are in the grasp of the Divine Power, and none of them has any support or help against Us, nor any way to ward off Our decree.
His (How majestic is His mention) words:
{(33) A sign for them is the dead earth. We give life to it. And We bring out from it grain from which they eat}.
Since the matter of the resurrection was the greatest of their doubts, and they repeatedly denied it, Allah (Blessed is He) repeatedly addressed the resurrection. He (Blessed is He) struck a similitude for it, in many verses, of the resurrection of the earth with plants.
How strange is the situation of the person who negates the science of Usul al-Din and claims that there is no evidence for it in the Book? How could anyone doubt that when the majority of the verses of the Qur’an exhort one to investigate and judge according to intellectual proofs?
Allah guides to His light whoever He wills. If they had judged fairly and busied themselves with the most important thing, they would not have neglected the science of Usul al-Din. Nevertheless, they were satisfied to follow others in that science and claimed to be Imams and sources of the branch sciences [fiqh]. This meaning is expressed in the following couplets:
O, you who has claimed the honor of Imamah in,
Matters of jurisprudence, teaching and instructing,
You have neglected the evidences that prove Divine Oneness,
You have reinforced the branches without paving the foundation.
Connections Between Surah Ya Sin and Other Surahs In the Qur’an
Imam al-Suyuti writes in Inner Dimensions from the Order of the Surahs in the Qur'an:
This passage is excerpted from Imam Ghazali Publishing’s translation of Imam al-Suyuti’s Asrar Tartib al-Qur’an, which will be published soon as Inner Dimensions from the Order of the Surahs in the Qur’an.
It occurred to me that this surah is connected to the one before it through the following verses
‘A warner has come to you’ (Fatir 35:37)
And:
‘They swore by Allah with their strongest oaths that if there were to come to them a warner, they would be more guided than the first nations. But when there came to them a warner...’ (Fatir 35:42)
The warner referenced there is Muhammad ﷺ. However, they turned away from him and denied him. So, this surah is opened by swearing an oath to the truth of his Message, confirming that he was on a Straight Path, and directing him to warn a people whose fathers had not been warned. This example is apparent.
It is also said in Fatir:
‘He subjugated the sun and the moon’ (Fatir 35:13)
While in Ya Sin, [He says]:
‘And the sun runs its course towards its place of rest. That is the decree of the Almighty, the All-Knowing. And We have decreed stages for the moon until it becomes like an old date stalk.’ (Ya Sin 36:38-39)
The latter verse is far more detailed.
The verse:
‘You see the ships ploughing through them’ (Fatir 35:12)
Is described in depth in Ya Sin where He says:
‘And a sign for them is that We carried their forefathers in the laden ship. And We created for them, its likeness, that which they ride. If We willed, We would drown them. So there would be no one to respond to their plea, nor would anyone save them’ (Ya Sin 36:42-43).
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