Sūrat Yā-Sīn · Āyāt 13–32

What the passage says

God tells the Prophet to set before the people a parable — the story of the people of a town to whom messengers came (v. 13). Two messengers were sent and both were rejected; God then reinforced them with a third, and together they insisted, "We really have been sent to you" (v. 14). The townspeople pushed back: "You are only humans like us, the All-beneficent has sent down nothing, and you are simply lying" (v. 15). The messengers answered that their Lord knew the truth of their mission (v. 16) and that their only charge was to deliver the message in clear terms (v. 17) — nothing more was on them.

The townspeople turned to threats: "We take you for a bad omen; stop, or we will stone you and a painful punishment will reach you from us" (v. 18). The messengers replied that the ill omen was the people's own — borne of their disbelief — and rebuked them: "Even when you are reminded? No, you are a people who go beyond all bounds" (v. 19).

Then a man came hurrying from the far edge of the city (v. 20), urging, "O my people, follow the messengers — follow those who ask you no reward and who are themselves rightly guided" (v. 21). He reasoned aloud: "Why would I not worship the One who originated me, the One to whom you will all be returned?" (v. 22). To take other gods would be senseless — if the All-beneficent willed him harm, no idol's intercession could help or rescue him (v. 23); that would be plain error (v. 24). He declared his faith openly: "I believe in your Lord, so hear me" (v. 25).

He was killed, and the word came: "Enter the Garden" (v. 26). His response was not vengeance but longing for his people: "If only my people knew how my Lord has forgiven me and placed me among the honored" (v. 27). After him, God sent down no army from heaven against his people, nor needed to (v. 28): it was a single Cry, and they were stilled, lifeless (v. 29). The passage closes with grief and warning — "Alas for the servants: no messenger ever came to them but they mocked him" (v. 30); have they not seen how many earlier generations God destroyed, who never return (v. 31)? And every one of them will be brought before God for reckoning (v. 32).

Convergence — where the six agree

• The town is Antioch (Anṭākiya). Every source that names it agrees: Ṭūsī (al-Tibyān) attributes the identification to ʿIkrima and al-Farrāʾ, and the Enlightening Commentary calls it the popular view, placing the city in present-day Turkey. Its people were idolaters, and the messengers called them to worship of the All-beneficent (al-Raḥmān).
• Two messengers, then a third to reinforce them. All six transmit the same sequence: two were sent and belied, then strengthened by a third. Ṭabarsī (Majmaʿ al-Bayān) traces "We strengthened them" (fa-ʿazzaznā) to the root for strength and might; Ṭūsī ties the "braced their backs" sense to a reading attributed to Mujāhid and Ibn Zayd. Ṭabarsī cites Ibn ʿAbbās that the first two were beaten and imprisoned — matching the narration carried by al-Qummī and al-Baḥrānī (al-Burhān) that the townspeople seized them and locked them in the idol-house.
• The deniers' objection and the messengers' answer. All agree the rejecters reasoned that mere human likeness disqualified the messengers (Ṭūsī calls this their "specious doubt"), and that the messengers' sole duty was the clear conveyance (al-balāgh al-mubīn) — delivery of the message, nothing more, as Ṭabāṭabāʾī (al-Mīzān), Ṭabarsī, Ṭūsī, and the Enlightening Commentary all state.
• The omen is turned back on the deniers. On "Your bad omens attend you" (v. 19), Ṭabarsī, Ṭūsī, Ṭabāṭabāʾī, and the Enlightening Commentary agree the ill-fortune belongs to the people themselves because of their disbelief — not to the messengers — and that "you are a prodigal people" means they exceed all limits in rejection and disobedience.
• The running believer and his plea. All six describe the man who hurried from the city's edge to defend the messengers. They agree his argument was that men who ask no reward and are themselves guided are the mark of sincerity (Ṭūsī, the Enlightening Commentary, Ṭabāṭabāʾī), and that his confession (vv. 22–25) is a pure monotheistic argument: worship is owed to the Creator who originated him, and no idol can intercede or rescue against God's will.
• His death, the Garden, and the single Cry. The sources agree the people killed the believer and that "Enter the Garden" follows his death; Ṭabāṭabāʾī and the Enlightening Commentary both read this as the Garden of the intermediary world (barzakh). All agree the town's destruction came by a single Cry (ṣayḥa wāḥida) — God needed no heavenly army (v. 28) — leaving them "stilled" (khāmidūn), which al-Qummī glosses simply as "dead."

Divergence — where they differ

• The names of the messengers. Ṭabarsī gives two competing sets — Shamʿūn (Simon), Yūḥannā (John), and Būlus (Paul) on Shuʿba's authority; or Ṣādiq, Ṣadūq, and Salūm on the authority of Ibn ʿAbbās and Kaʿb. The Enlightening Commentary repeats the first set; Ṭūsī and the Enlightening Commentary otherwise leave the names open. Ṭabāṭabāʾī steps back from the dispute entirely, holding that the man's name and profession are irrelevant to the verse's intent.
• Messengers of God, or disciples of Jesus? This is the one substantive interpretive split. Ṭabarsī reports the "disciples of Jesus" view (from Wahb and Kaʿb); Ṭūsī and the Enlightening Commentary report both but judge the apparent sense (al-ẓāhir) to be that they were God's own messengers. The narrational sources — al-Burhān (via Wahb ibn Munabbih) and the story Ṭabarsī appends — frame them as Jesus' envoys, with Simon Peter (Shamʿūn al-Ṣafā) sent to aid them.
• The believer's name. Most sources call him Ḥabīb the Carpenter (Ḥabīb al-Najjār) — Ṭabarsī, al-Qummī, and the Enlightening Commentary. Ṭūsī alone records the variant Ḥabīb ibn Murrī for the same figure.
• Killed, or raised alive? Against the majority view that he was killed, Ṭūsī alone preserves a dissenting report from al-Ḥasan that God raised him up alive, so that he is in the Garden and will not die until the heavens perish. No other source carries this.
• Who says "Alas for the servants" (v. 30)? Ṭabāṭabāʾī holds these are God's words and expressly rejects the view that the believing man speaks them; the Enlightening Commentary agrees it is God's word (and not literal regret). Ṭūsī, by contrast, transmits the very view that it is the speech of the man who came from the city's edge.
• A unique gloss from al-Qummī. On "We augur an evil omen from you" (v. 18), al-Qummī alone (via Abū al-Jārūd from Imām al-Bāqir) reads it as "by your names" — a reading no other source offers.

Each scholar's full text is in the source panels below.