Ya-Sin · Makki · ayah 67 of 83

Ya-Sin 36:67

وَلَوْ نَشَآءُ لَمَسَخْنَـٰهُمْ عَلَىٰ مَكَانَتِهِمْ فَمَا ٱسْتَطَـٰعُوا۟ مُضِيًّا وَلَا يَرْجِعُونَ

“And if We willed, We could have deformed them, [paralyzing them] in their places so they would not be able to proceed, nor could they return.[1278]”

Saheeh International

Essence

Every step you take, forward or back, is lent; this ayah describes the loan being called in, and then does not call it.

A reflection

The step you took without thinking

This morning you got out of bed and walked to the window. You did not decide each muscle. You did not check whether your legs would answer. They simply did, as they have thousands of times before.

This ayah describes the moment that stops. If We willed, We would transform them where they stand. Then they could not go forward, and they would not turn back. The concise commentaries describe it plainly: We would change their form and seat them in their places. They could not move ahead, and they could not go back.

Look at the verb for could not. Istaṭāʿū comes from a root whose picture is a mount that answers the lightest touch of the rein. A horse easy on the rein, a camel that never pulls against the one who leads her. Capacity, in this language, is something that yields to you. It is not something you own outright. It is a mount that goes where you guide it, while it is allowed to.

That undoes one of the most cherished modern stories: the self-made person. I got here on my own two feet. There is a kind of pride that lives entirely on that sentence. It looks back over a career and sees only its own steps, every one of them chosen and earned.

The ayah does not deny that the steps were taken. It asks whose permission kept the legs answering. One commentator observes that these people are, at this very moment, within the grip of His power. The only reason they are walking is that He has not willed otherwise.

Every step you took today was lent. The humility that follows is not a loss of dignity. It is the truth about where the dignity came from.

The full entry has 6 more reflections, questions to sit with, and "Live it today" - with the words, the roots and the tafsir alongside. Free, no account, works offline.