Surah Ya seen 36:23
ﲨ ﲩ ﲪ ﲫ ﲬ ﲭ ﲮ ﲯ ﲰ ﲱ ﲲ ﲳ ﲴ ﲵ ﲶ
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?
Tafsir of Ya seen 36:23
Tafsir
Ruh al-Ma'ani
Verse range: 36:23
Shall I take besides Him gods?
This is a denunciation and a negation of taking any kind of god whatsoever, and in it lies a mockery of those who worship idols.
His saying: {If the Most Merciful intends for me some harm, their intercession will not avail me at all} This is a resumption introduced to provide the reason for the aforementioned negation. Making this a description of the "gods"—as some have gone—might imply that there are other gods to whom this does not apply. The meaning of "will not avail me" is: they will not provide me with any benefit. This is either:
- After the manner of the saying: "You will not see the dabb lizard burrowing therein," meaning there is no intercession for them at all for it to avail me.
- Or based on the assumption that intercession might take place; meaning, their intercession would not avail me anything if it were to occur.
{Nor can they save me}: They cannot rescue me from that harm through aid or support. This is an escalation from the lower degree to the higher; he began first by negating status (intercession), and secondly, he mentioned the absence of power, expressing it through the negation of rescue, for that is the result of power.
The opening of the ya of the first person in (يردني - yuridni) was read by Talha al-Samman, according to what Ibn Atiyyah said. Ibn Khalawayh said: Talha ibn Musarrif, Isa al-Hamdani, and Abu Ja'far [read it so], and it is narrated from Nafi', 'Asim, and Abu 'Amr. Al-Zamakhshari said: It was read as (إن يردني الرحمن بضر - in yuriduni) in the sense of "if He causes harm to befall me," i.e., making me the target of harm.
Abu Hayyan said: It is as if—and Allah knows best—he saw in the books of readings (يردني) with the ya opened, so he imagined it was the ya of the imperfect tense (mudari'), making the verb transitive by means of the causative ya like the hamza, and thus he introduced the causative hamza to it and took two objects. However, what is in the books of anomalous readings is that it is the ya of addition (ya al-idafa), which is omitted in script and pronunciation due to the meeting of two vowelless consonants. He said in the book of Ibn Khalawayh: "With the opening of the ya, the ya of addition." In al-Lawami', it says: (إن يردني الرحمن) with the opening, which is the original ya of the "visual" (basariyya), meaning that which is established in the script seen by the eye, though it is omitted [in this specific instance]. His words are finished, and holding a good opinion of al-Zamakhshari requires [us to interpret] the opposite of what [Abu Hayyan] mentioned.