The Holy Quran with Five Volume Commentary (Vol 4) — Page 755
PT. 23 R. 5. YĀ SIN CH. 36 وَمَنْ تُعَمِّرُهُ نُنَكِّسُهُ فِي الْخَلْقِ أَفَلَا And him whom We grant. 69 يَعْقِلُونَ long life We revert him to a weak condition of creation. Will they not then understand?3258 وَمَا عَلَّمْنَهُ الشَّعْرَ وَمَا يَنْبَغِى لَهُ And We have not taught him. 70 إنْ هُوَ إِلَّا ذِكْرٌ وَ قُرْآنٌ مُّبِينٌ) poetry, nor does it behove him to be a poet. It is but a Reminder and a Quran that makes things plain, 3259 Commentary: 16:71. 15:10; 65:11. According to Ibn 'Abbas the expression means, "We would have destroyed them in their houses" and according to Hasan, it signifies that all their physical and mental faculties would have become paralysed (Jarir). 3258. Important Words: (We revert him) is derived i. e. he turned from. They say a (nukisa) نكس الرجل ;it upside down means, the man became weak and powerless. (nakkasa) means, he reversed or reverted it (Aqrab). See also 20:66. Commentary: The verse points to a very important law of nature, viz. that everything that has life is subject to decay and deterioration. The law applies as well to nations as to individuals. Like individuals, nations also develop, grow and find their full stature, and then fall a victim to decay, decrepitude and death. The verse means to say that peoples who had received new life through Divine 2669 revelation have now fallen a prey to spiritual decay and decadence. God has, therefore, decreed that another nation, the Arabs, should rise and grow on the ruins of their grandeur and glory. For that purpose He has raised a Messenger among them. 3259. Commentary: The verse purports to say that the fact that God has intended that a nation, the Arabs, who so far had been very low in the scale of humanity should now rise to the heights of power and glory is no idle dream, no poetry. A Prophet of God, a Divine Messenger, who shall lead them to spiritual and material grand- eur, has arisen among them. It is inconsistent with the dignity of this great Prophet to be a poet, because whereas poets are generally given to idle dreaming and making castles in the air, the Prophets of God have before them very high and noble ideals and programmes. The verse, however, does not mean that all poetry is bad and that all poets are dreamers but it does mean that a Divine Prophet is far too dignified