Ya-Sin · Makki · ayah 23 of 83

Ya-Sin 36:23

ءَأَتَّخِذُ مِن دُونِهِۦٓ ءَالِهَةً إِن يُرِدْنِ ٱلرَّحْمَـٰنُ بِضُرٍّ لَّا تُغْنِ عَنِّى شَفَـٰعَتُهُمْ شَيْـًٔا وَلَا يُنقِذُونِ

“Should I take other than Him [false] deities [while], if the Most Merciful intends for me some adversity, their intercession will not avail me at all, nor can they save me?”

Saheeh International

Essence

Taking a second god is seeing double where there is only One; if the Merciful decides, no adopted helper can plead or rescue.

A reflection

Every number in your phone, and the water still rises

A man has spent his life arranging protections. Good insurance, a sharp lawyer, a cousin in the right office, savings in three banks. One winter night the river breaks its banks. He stands on the steps of his building and watches the water climb over the cars below. He has every number he needs in his phone. None of them can stop water.

The man in Ya-Sin names the One who decides such nights. If the Merciful intends me harm, he says, their intercession will avail me nothing, and they cannot rescue me. One commentator sets beside it another ayah: if Allah touches you with harm, none can remove it except Him (10:107).

A classical commentator notices something gentle in the grammar. It says in yuridni, if He intends me, with the person as the direct object, and the harm brought in after. The point, he explains, is that the servant is in Allah's hands, turned as He wills through hardship and ease. The harm is mentioned only as the hardest case. The speaker is a believer who hopes for mercy.

That is the shrinking of the ego in this ayah. Pride lives on arrangements. We feel safe in proportion to our contacts, our reserves, our cleverness. The ayah does not mock those things. It simply places them. On the day the Merciful decides otherwise, none of them can plead, and none can pull you out.

Someone may ask why the Merciful would will harm at all. The ayah does not say He wants to. It says that if He did, nothing else could stand in the way. That is not a threat. It is a map of where power actually lies, so that you lean your weight on the right thing.

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.