Welcome to our weekly program "Path towards Enlightenment" in which we present you a fluent and easy-to-understand explanation of the ayahs of the holy Qur’an. We start from we left you last Friday and here are ayahs 13 and 14 of Surah Ya Sin.

“Cite for them the example of the inhabitants of the town when the apostles came to it.”

“When We sent to them two [apostles], they belied both of them. Then We reinforced them with a third, and they said, ‘We have indeed been sent to you.”

Prophet Mohammad (blessings of God upon him and his progeny) is commanded by the Almighty to cite to the infidel Arabs of Mecca the incident of the time of Prophet Jesus (PuH), and his efforts to guide the polytheists to the right path.

It happened that in the Syrian city of Antioch – currently under occupation of Turkey – God had commanded Jesus to send two of his apostles to preach the words of truth, but the people of that place mistreated these two persons, beat them up and imprisoned them. Then by God’s commandment Jesus sent his prominent disciple Shamoun bin Safa or Simon, as the third apostle to Antioch. Simon succeeded in procuring the release from prison of the two previous apostles. Then together they went to the marketplace and invited people towards monotheism, saying there is no god except Allah and Jesus is the Prophet of Allah. These three apostles warned of divine punishment if the people persisted in the worship of idols and indulged in vices. According to narrations, only forty persons believed in the message of monotheism.

From these ayahs we learn that:

1. Study of the accounts of the people of the past, helps us avoid the fate that befell the sinners, and opens for us the path of salvation.
2. The Prophets and Apostles preached to the people despite the severe opposition they faced.

Now we listen to and read ayahs 15, 16, and 17 of Surah Ya Sin:

“They said, ‘You are nothing but humans like us, and the All-Beneficent has not sent down anything, and you are only lying.”

“They said, ‘Our Lord knows that we have indeed been sent to you;”

“And our duty is only to communicate in clear terms.”

As we said earlier, only forty persons believed in the mission of the apostles sent by Prophet Jesus to the people of Antioch, while the rest indulged in wild accusations and illogical arguments, saying: You are nothing but humans like us. There is no difference between you and us. On what basis did God entrust the mission to you for our guidance? Contrary to your claim, the All-Beneficent Lord has not revealed anything to you.

Through such irrational talk, unbelievers, whether of the past or present, mean to say that if God really wants to guide them, He would have sent an angel.

The fact is, if God had sent angels for guidance of mankind, these very same persons would have opposed the angel, saying how can an angel who does not have human traits and human needs, guide human beings, since he cannot set any personal practical example, because he has neither any need for food or drink nor the desires for wife, family and procreation?

Thus, the All-Wise Lord raised Prophets from among mankind, on the basis of their firm faith, piety, courage, and endurance in setting practical examples for fellow human beings. In this case, the disbelievers and sinners have no excuse, and their opposition to the mission of the Prophets means their manifest disobedience of God and their deviation from their own human nature.

In other words, the Prophet and the messengers of God cannot be belied, since any accusations against them by the deviant, whether of the past or the present, only exposes the devilish instincts of the disbelievers and their deserving of divine punishment.  

From these ayahs we learn that:

1. It is wrong to think that God’s mercy means that human beings are free to do whatever their animal instincts dictate.
2. God raised the Prophets from among mankind in order to set the finest practical examples for the rest of the society, so that the deviant have no excuse.  

Now we listen to and read ayahs 18 and 19 of Surah Ya Sin:

“They said, ‘Indeed we take you for a bad omen. If you do not relinquish we will stone you, and surely a painful punishment will visit you from us.”

“They (the apostles) said, ‘Your bad omens attend you. What! If you are admonished …. Rather you are a profligate lot.”

These ayahs refer to the irrationality of the unbelievers and their vain efforts to abort the divine mission through mistreatment and threats of death to the preachers of the words of truth.

It happened that the people of Antioch, instead of considering as auspicious for them the apostles sent by Jesus on God’s command, attributed bad omens to them, saying: If you do not stop preaching, we will stone you and subject you to a painful torture. Do not talk about God and Hereafter in this town. Get out of here at once.

The apostles replied: Your bad omen is with you. If you are warned against the worshipping of idols which are nothing but creation of your warped minds and your hands that have crafted them, this is not vain talk. Is this word of admonition ominous and sinister? Is it a bad word if you are asked to give up vices and become virtuous, for your own sake, whether during your daily life or for your salvation in afterlife? You are in abomination yourself from head to toe.

Anyone who attributes bad omen to others is himself/herself afflicted by its bad result. In short, it is nothing but superstition and self-deception on the part of unbelievers to consider the words of truth and the messengers of God as bad omen. The suffering of both individuals and societies is because of their own false beliefs and lack of proper faith.

From these ayahs we learn that:

1. Threats towards the righteous and belying of the manifest truth, only exposes the irrationality of the wayward.
2. A person who lacks proper belief and has no logic, resorts to superstitions.
3. Profligacy is not merely refers to consumption, but denial of truth and transgression is a type of profligacy.    

AS/ME