Ya-Sin · Makki · ayah 69 of 83

Ya-Sin 36:69

وَمَا عَلَّمْنَـٰهُ ٱلشِّعْرَ وَمَا يَنۢبَغِى لَهُۥٓ ۚ إِنْ هُوَ إِلَّا ذِكْرٌ وَقُرْءَانٌ مُّبِينٌ

“And We did not give him [i.e., Prophet Muḥammad (ﷺ)] knowledge of poetry, nor is it befitting for him. It is not but a message and a clear Qur’ān”

Saheeh International

Essence

The Quran is not the most beautiful poem ever written; it is a thread tied round your finger, so you remember why you were made.

A reflection

Not the greatest poem ever written

Admirers of the Quran often reach for one particular compliment. It is poetry, they say, the most beautiful poetry in Arabic. Believers say it with pride, and sympathetic outsiders say it generously. It sounds like the highest praise a book can receive.

This ayah refuses the compliment. We did not teach him poetry, nor is it fitting for him. The concise commentary is blunt about why the sentence exists. It answers their claim that what he brought was poetry.

The commentators explain what separates the two. One asks where the metre is, where the rhyme scheme is, where the themes poets chase. The Quran shares nothing with poetry, he says, except that both are in Arabic.

Another goes to the heart of the difference. In poetry, he says, the meaning follows the words. The poet chooses a word because it fits the metre or the rhyme, then bends the meaning to suit it. With the Lawgiver it is the reverse: the words follow the meaning. Even when a phrase in the Quran happens to scan, it is not poetry, because the metre was never the aim.

A later commentator adds a sharper reason. Poetry trades in imaginings, things made to attract or repel. He quotes an old saying: the sweetest of it is the falsest. The Quran is wisdom, belief and law.

So calling the Quran poetry is not the compliment it seems. It treats the most important words a person will ever hear as an artwork. The ayah tells you what it actually is: only a reminder, and a clear recitation.

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.