Sūrat Yā-Sīn · Āyāt 1–12

What the passage says

The sūrah opens with the two letters Yā-Sīn (v.1). The Imāmī line reads these not as a riddle but as a name of the Prophet himself — the very next words, the oath of his messengership, are taken as the proof.

By the wise Qurʾān (v.2) — God swears an oath. To call the Qurʾān "wise" (ḥakīm) is to say it holds wisdom and, almost as a living speaker, makes wisdom plain; the root also carries the sense of being firm against falsehood and corruption.

You are indeed one of the messengers, upon a straight path (vv.3–4) — this is the thing God swears to: that Muḥammad is genuinely sent, and that he walks a clear, straight road that delivers its traveler to truth and to the Garden.

A revelation of the Mighty, the Merciful (v.5) — the Qurʾān itself is described: sent down by the One mighty in His dominion (never overpowered) and merciful to His creation.

That you may warn a people whose fathers were not warned, so they are heedless (v.6) — the purpose of the sending. The "people" are read most often as the Quraysh, whose recent forefathers lived in the gap (fatra) between Jesus and Muḥammad with no warner; "heedless" means heedless of the Qurʾān's message and of the punishment it warns of.

The word has been proven true against most of them, so they will not have faith (v.7) — the decree of punishment has become binding on most of them; God foreknows they will die in disbelief.

Iron collars to the chins, heads forced up (v.8); a barrier before and behind, eyes covered (v.9) — these two verses form one image. Read together by the consensus as a figure for obstinate disbelievers whom God has left to themselves: chained so they cannot reach toward good, hemmed in front and back, blinded so they cannot see the path. Muqmaḥ is the one whose head is thrust up and gaze fixed, like a camel that lifts its head and will not drink.

It is the same whether you warn them or not; they will not believe (v.10) — their refusal is rooted in obstinacy and an unwillingness to reflect; this was already explained back in al-Baqara.

You can only warn one who follows the Reminder and fears the All-Merciful unseen — so give him glad tidings of forgiveness and a noble reward (v.11) — warning lands only on the receptive: the one who follows the Qurʾān ("the Reminder") and holds God in awe even when unseen, before death lifts the veil. His reward is great forgiveness and the Garden.

We revive the dead and write what they sent ahead and the traces they leave, and We have figured everything in a manifest Imām (v.12) — at the Resurrection God records both deeds done and the lasting legacies people leave behind, good or evil. "A manifest Imām" (imām mubīn) is most broadly the Preserved Tablet in which all things are counted; the Imāmī sources also transmit ʿAlī's own words, "I am the clear register."

Convergence — where the six agree

• All six read Yā-Sīn as a name of the Prophet, anchored in the ḥadīth of Imām al-Ṣādiq whose proof is the following oath of messengership. Ṭabarsī, Ṭūsī and al-Baḥrānī also stack the "names of the Prophet in the Qurʾān" ḥadīths around it.
• The oath of v.2 swears to the Prophet's messengership (vv.3–4), and v.5 praises the Qurʾān as revelation from the Mighty and Merciful — stated across Ṭabarsī, Ṭūsī, al-Qummī, al-Baḥrānī, Ṭabāṭabāʾī and the Enlightening Commentary alike.
• The collars, barrier and covering of vv.8–9 are read primarily as metaphor, not literal shackling in this world — Ṭūsī is bluntest that no one was physically chained; Ṭabarsī, Ṭabāṭabāʾī and the Enlightening Commentary all read it as God forsaking those who severed their own ties to guidance.
• The Abū Jahl occasion of revelation — he swore to crush the praying Prophet and his hand was bound to his neck — is transmitted by Ṭabarsī, Ṭūsī, al-Qummī, al-Baḥrānī, Ṭabāṭabāʾī and the Enlightening Commentary, with the Imāmī chain running Abū al-Jārūd from Imām al-Bāqir.
• On v.12 the "traces" (āthār) are enduring legacies, good or evil, and "manifest Imām" is the Preserved Tablet — with all four sources that carry ḥadīth (Ṭabarsī partly, al-Qummī, al-Baḥrānī, and reported in Ṭabāṭabāʾī and the Enlightening Commentary) also preserving ʿAlī's saying "I am the clear register."

Divergence — where they differ

• Glosses of Yā-Sīn beyond "the Prophet's name." Ṭabarsī and Ṭūsī catalogue alternatives — "O man," "O Muḥammad," "O master of the first and the last," a Syriac/Ṭayyiʾ-dialect "O man." al-Baḥrānī uniquely carries al-Ṣādiq's gloss "O you who hear the revelation." The two English commentaries lean almost entirely on the "name of the Prophet" reading.
• How literal vv.8–9 are. Ṭabarsī and Ṭūsī both present a second, eschatological reading — that the chains describe the disbelievers' actual state on the Day of Resurrection (citing 40:71; 69:30–31). Ṭabāṭabāʾī takes a middle path: the imagery is "not merely figurative" but discloses a real hidden inner form that surfaces at death and resurrection.
• Whether the occasion-of-revelation stories fix the meaning. This is the sharpest split. Ṭabarsī, Ṭūsī, al-Qummī and al-Baḥrānī treat the Abū Jahl narration as a genuine cause of revelation; Ṭabāṭabāʾī deliberately demotes it, stating the verses "do not concord with these stories" and describe the universal way humankind divides into two groups.
• A lone Medinan-verse report. Ṭūsī alone relays Ibn ʿAbbās's view that one verse of the sūrah is Medinan; no other source raises it.
• A few unique additions. Ṭabarsī enumerates four distinct views on v.8 (including Abū Muslim's that the Qurʾān itself was the "chains"); al-Qummī alone gives the vivid detail of the second attacker fleeing from "something like a calf lashing its tail"; the Enlightening Commentary alone preserves the scene where Abū Bakr and ʿUmar ask whether imām mubīn means the Torah, Bible or Qurʾān before the Prophet identifies ʿAlī.

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