SURAH YA-SIN WARNS us of a familiar human character trait: when the truth becomes uncomfortable, we turn against the person reminding us of it.
There is something deeply troubling about the way people can respond to a reminder. Rather than consider whether what they have been told is true, they turn their attention towards the person who said it. They question their motives, attack their character and accuse them of causing division. The original message gets lost, and the person delivering it becomes the problem.
This is not just a part of modern politics or social media. It’s a human tendency shown in the Qur’an’s story about those who ignored the messengers sent to them.
In Surah Yā-Sīn, the people of the town meet the messengers with open hostility:
قَالُوا إِنَّا تَطَيَّرْنَا بِكُمْ لَئِن لَّمْ تَنتَهُوا لَنَرْجُمَنَّكُمْ وَلَيَمَسَّنَّكُم مِّنَّا عَذَابٌ أَلِيمٌ
They said, ‘We see an evil omen in you. If you do not stop, we will surely stone you, and a painful punishment from us will surely touch you.’ (Yā-Sīn 18)
The messengers had brought a reminder, and the people decided that the messengers themselves were the source of their misfortune. The warning was never answered. It was replaced by an accusation, and then by a threat.
Allah tells us how the messengers responded to this warning:
قَالُوا طَائِرُكُم مَّعَكُمْ أَئِن ذُكِّرْتُمْ بَلْ أَنتُمْ قَوْمٌ مُّسْرِفُونَ
They said, ‘Your misfortune is with you. Is it because you have been reminded? Rather, you are a people who transgress all bounds.’ (Yā-Sīn 19)
The reply exposes the reversal. The problem was not the warning the people had received, but their own response to it.
There is a lesson here for Muslims too. What happens when those who remind us of Allah’s guidance become the very people we turn against?
When the messenger becomes the problem
The word ṭāʾirukum is connected to ṭāʾir, meaning bird. In pre-Islamic Arab culture, birds were associated with omens and predictions of fortune. The people had used this very idiom against the messengers (taṭayyarnā, from the same root, in the verse before). The messengers hand it back: ṭāʾirukum maʿakum, your omen, your fortune, is with you. The misfortune the people attributed to the messengers was not caused by them. Their own conduct was the real issue.
Notice how easily the focus can shift. A message calls people to reconsider their beliefs or actions. Instead of examining that message, they begin examining the person who delivered it. Is he divisive? What are his intentions? Why does he have to speak so harshly? Is he trying to cause trouble?
Some of these questions may be legitimate. Scholars and people engaged in daʿwah are human beings. They can make mistakes, misunderstand evidence, speak unwisely or act from questionable motives. Islam does not ask us to accept every claim simply because someone invokes the Qur’an and Sunnah.
But there is a crucial distinction between examining the person and answering the argument. Finding a fault in the person delivering a reminder does not, by itself, make the reminder false.
We see this distinction blurred repeatedly in Muslim communal life. Those who challenge accepted assumptions can be dismissed as extremists or troublemakers. Those who speak about neglected Islamic obligations can be accused of dividing the community. Those who question the political arrangements under which Muslims live can be told that they should stop creating fitnah and concentrate on more comfortable subjects.
The question they raise is often left unanswered. Instead, attention shifts to the person who raised it.
The messenger has become the problem.
Is it because you have been reminded?
The next part of the messengers’ reply makes it even more revealing: a-in dhukkirtum, is it because you have been reminded?
This is a rhetorical question. The messengers are not asking for information. It exposes the absurdity of treating the reminder itself as the cause of the hostility. Why should being reminded of the truth provoke such a response?
Perhaps because the reminder challenges something we have grown comfortable with. It exposes a gap between what we profess to believe and how we actually live. It calls us to reconsider assumptions that we have never seriously examined, or obligations we have learnt to neglect.
This can be uncomfortable for individuals, but it can also be uncomfortable for entire communities.
It is one thing to affirm that Islam is our way of life. It is another to consider what that means for how we understand society, politics, economics and the responsibilities of the ummah. It is easy to praise the scholars of the past, while finding reasons to dismiss those in the present who remind us of obligations we would rather not confront.
A reminder about the suffering of Muslims may be welcomed, provided it asks little of us. But what happens when someone questions why that suffering continues, examines the political conditions surrounding it, or challenges the assumptions that shape our response? The discussion can quickly move away from the substance of the argument towards the character and intentions of the person raising it.
The discomfort is real. But discomfort is not evidence that the reminder is wrong.
When truth carries a cost
Throughout Islamic history, those who called people back to Allah’s guidance have not always been welcomed. The Qur’an repeatedly describes messengers facing rejection, ridicule and threats. Their experiences remind us that delivering a message does not guarantee that people will accept it, even when the message is precisely what they need to hear.
The hardship faced by scholars and those carrying daʿwah is therefore not, in itself, proof that they are right. Nor does criticism automatically mean that they are wrong. Their arguments must still be judged by the evidence.
But the Qur’an warns us against assuming that rejection is a reliable measure of truth. A message does not become false because it is unpopular, and a person does not become a troublemaker simply because their words unsettle an audience.
This matters because communities can develop habits of protecting themselves from uncomfortable questions. A person who raises a difficult issue is treated as a threat to unity. Yet unity cannot mean that questions about our obligations are never raised, or that accepted assumptions must remain beyond examination. Genuine unity cannot be built by making the truth unspeakable.
There is also a responsibility on those who carry daʿwah. They must speak with knowledge, sincerity and wisdom. They must be willing to correct their own mistakes and distinguish between defending the truth and defending their egos. The Qur’anic warning is not a licence for anyone to claim that every objection to them is proof of their righteousness.
The same standard applies to everyone: examine the message honestly, and be willing to correct yourself when the evidence demands it.
A community willing to be reminded
The messengers’ reply ends decisively: bal antum qawmun musrifūn. The word bal, meaning “rather” or “on the contrary”, turns the accusation back towards those making it. The problem is not the reminder they are rejecting. It is their own conduct.
The word musrifūn, from the root s-r-f, refers to those who go too far. In this sense, the warning is not just about a single moment of annoyance. It highlights the risk of responding without acknowledging one’s own responsibility.
As Muslims, we must be careful not to reproduce this pattern. We cannot claim to follow the Qur’an while treating every challenge to our thinking as an attack. We cannot insist that others accept correction while making excuses whenever correction is directed at us. And we cannot honour the principle of speaking the truth while judging that truth according to whether it comforts us.
The question is not whether we agree with every scholar, speaker or person engaged in daʿwah. We should question arguments, examine evidence and reject what is incorrect. The question is whether we are prepared to do that honestly, or whether we have already decided that the person challenging us must be discredited.
When the reminder comes, do we ask what Allah is teaching us through it? Or do we immediately search for reasons to dismiss the one who brought it?
Surah Yā-Sīn warns us of the danger of turning the messenger into the enemy while leaving our own conduct unexamined. A community that cannot bear to be reminded will struggle to recognise where it has gone wrong. And a community that refuses to recognise its mistakes will find it difficult to correct them.
|QUR’ANIC REFLECTION · SURAH YA-SIN 18–19|
