Tafsir of Ya seen 36:60

"Did I not enjoin upon you..."

The Covenant (al-‘ahd): It is the commandment (al-waṣiyyah). "He enjoined upon him" (‘ahida ilayhi) means he commanded him. God’s covenant with them is what He implanted within them of rational proofs and what He sent down to them of revelatory signs.

Worshipping Satan: It is obeying him in what he whispers to them and makes alluring for them.

Readings:

• (A‘had): With a kasra on the hamza. In the fa‘ala verb pattern, it is permissible to use a kasra for all present-tense prefixes, except for the yā’.
• (A‘hid): With a kasra on the hā’. Al-Zajjāj permitted this to be from the category of na‘ima-yan‘imu and ḍaraba-yaḍribu.
• (Aḥhad): With a ḥā’.
• (Aḥad): This is the dialect of Tamīm. From this is their saying: daḥā maḥā.

"This is a straight path": This refers to what was enjoined upon them regarding disobeying Satan and obeying the Most Merciful, for there is no path more upright than it.

The indefiniteness (tankīr) here is like the usage in the verse of Kuthayyir: "If she is guided by the coolness of her teeth, then I am poorer than I; for I am truly poor." He meant: I am poor, possessing extreme poverty, worthy of being described as such because its conditions are complete in me; otherwise, the meaning of the verse would not hold.

Likewise, His saying: "This is a straight path" means: a path that is extreme in its category, extreme in its straightness, encompassing every condition that it ought to possess.

It is also possible that it means: "This is one of the straight paths," as a rebuke to them for turning away from it and avoiding traveling upon it—just as people avoid a crooked path that leads to misguidance and destruction. It is as if it were said: "The least that can be said of the path that is the most upright of paths is that one should believe in it as one believes in a path that does not lead the traveler astray."

This is like a man saying to his son, after having given him the most thorough advice possible, leaving nothing after it: "This, I think, is a beneficial word, not a harmful one," as a rebuke to him for turning away from his advice.

"And he has already led astray many of you. Did you not, then, understand? This is Hell, which you were promised. Enter it today because you used to disbelieve."