Ya-Sin · Makki · ayah 19 of 83

Ya-Sin 36:19

قَالُوا۟ طَـٰٓئِرُكُم مَّعَكُمْ ۚ أَئِن ذُكِّرْتُم ۚ بَلْ أَنتُمْ قَوْمٌ مُّسْرِفُونَ

“They said, "Your omen [i.e., fate] is with yourselves. Is it[1262] because you were reminded? Rather, you are a transgressing people."”

Saheeh International

Essence

The bird you blame is tied to your own neck: misfortune travels with what we believe and do, not with the person who reminded us.

A reflection

The same trouble arrives at every new job

A man has left four jobs in six years. Each time it was a bad manager, a toxic team, a company in decline. He starts a fifth with real hope. Six weeks in, his wife hears him describe his new manager in exactly the words he used for the last one. She says nothing. She is beginning to see what travels with him.

Most of us hear ṭāʾirukum maʿakum, your omen is with you, as a clever retort. The messengers turn the town's superstition back on it. Neat, and satisfying, and about them.

The commentaries make it a principle. The cause of your ill fortune is with you, one explains, not coming from us as you claim. It is your corrupt belief and your ugly deeds. Two early authorities said it more simply: your deeds are with you. A classical commentator puts it bluntly: your bad luck is with you, and it is your disbelief.

That sentence reaches far beyond one town. It names a habit we all have: locating the source of our troubles in whoever happens to be standing near them. The new colleague. The in-laws. The landlord. The neighbour. Sometimes they are the cause. Often the common factor in our recurring troubles is the one person present at all of them.

The ayah does not say that nothing bad ever comes from outside. It says that the omen the town was blaming on the messengers was really its own, carried in its own choices.

That is hard to hear, and it is also hopeful. If the cause travels with you, so does the cure. You cannot change every manager. You can change what you bring into the room. The man at his fifth job could begin there.

The full entry has 5 more reflections, questions to sit with, and "Live it today" - with the words, the roots and the tafsir alongside. Free, no account, works offline.