Yaseen (Yaseen)

31. “Have they not seen how many generations We destroyed before them? Not to them will they return.”

32. “And all of them shall surely be brought before Us.”

The consequence of people’s mocking Divine prophets is annihilation, and when the Wrath of Allah comes, there is no way for them to return and recompense. We must not lose the opportunities.

That is why the Qur’an in these two holy verses says:

“Have they not seen how many generations We destroyed before them?…”

These are not the first people who lived on the earth. There have been some other arrogant people before them who lived in this world and the painful fate of them which has been recorded in the history and the sorrowful traces which have been remained from them in the ruins of their habituated cities are in front of their eyes.

Is this amount of news not enough for them to take example?

That to whom does the plural pronoun in the Qur’anic sentence saying /’alam yarau/ (have they not seen) return? The commentators have delivered some probabilities:

The first is that it returns to the ‘people of the town’ about whom the previous verses talked. And also its purpose maybe the people of Mecca for whom these verses were revealed to be warned of.

But, regarding to the previous verse saying:

“Alas for the servants!…”

it shows that its purpose is all human beings, because the Qur’anic word /‘ibad/ (servants) in that verse envelops all human being throughout the history, those who, at the time of appointment of the Divine prophets, belied them and mocked them.

However, it is an invitation to all the people of the world that they may carefully study the story of former nations, and observe their remaining effects, and use the sense of taking an example from them to understand them well, and the ruin castles of those arrogant people may have an effect on them.

At the end, the verse adds:

“…Not to them will they return.”

That is, the great calamity is here that they have no possibility to return to the world and recompense their former sins and misfortunes. The bridges behind them have been ruined so violently that it is impossible for them to return in order to recompense these faults.

This commentary is just like the word of Hadrat Ali (as) who has said in one of the sermons of Nahj-ul-Balaqah about taking example from the dead.

He said:

“There is neither a possibility that they transfer from their ugly deeds nor are they able to increase their goodness.”1

In the next verse the Qur’an says:

“And all of them shall surely be brought before Us.”

That is, it is not such that if they were destroyed and could not return to this world, everything is finished. In fact, death is neither the beginning nor the end. Soon all human beings will be mustered in the scene of Hereafter for reckoning and, after that, there will be the painful chastisement of Allah which is waiting for the wrong doers.

In this case, is it not the time they take example from their condition and do not afflict themselves in the same fate as theirs and, in this remaining respite, they go aside from this terrible whirlpool.

Yes, if death were the end of everything, it would be possible to say that it was the beginning of tranquillity, but also it is not so. If we were left to ourselves when we died, death would be the cause of rest for all the living people. But when we pass away, we will be quickened again and after that we wholly will be asked about everything.