Surah Ya-Sin 36:68
سُورَةُ يسٓ · Meccan · Verse 68 of 83
وَمَن نُّعَمِّرْهُ نُنَكِّسْهُ فِى ٱلْخَلْقِ ۖ أَفَلَا يَعْقِلُونَ
Translation
If We extend anyone’s life, We reverse his development. Do they not use their reason?
English translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem.
Meaning and reflection
'And whomever We grant long life, We reverse in creation. Will they not then reason?' Ibn Ashur and al-Biqa'i note that aging itself is offered as a sign: the strong body walked back down to weakness, the sharp mind softened, a slow, public reversal everyone witnesses. It is a sermon written into the human lifespan. Ask yourself: I watch aging happen to my parents, my elders, eventually myself, and treat it as mere biology to be resisted or hidden. This verse reads it as evidence, the One who can walk strength back to frailty can as easily remake me after death. What if the wrinkles and the fading were not just decline, but a daily reminder from my Creator, and the only real failure were to watch it and 'not reason'?
Grounded in classical tafsir: Ibn Ashur, al-Biqa'i, al-Saadi.
Topics that discuss this verse
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