Yā Sīn

وَمَن نُعَمّـِرْهُ نُنَكّـِسْهُ فِي الْخَلْقِ أَفَلاَ يَعْقِلُونَ

68. “And whomever We cause to live long, We reverse him to an abject state in constitution; do they not then understand?”

Through previous verses Allah implicitly said that if He pleases He may make the eyes blind and change the features. This verse refers to an example of these changes concerning the aged persons. It points to the man’s situation at the end of his life from the point of weakness and inability of both mind and body, so that it can be both a warning unto those who postpone choosing the path of guidance from today to tomorrow, and an answer to those who take the short of life as a cause for their faults, and it can be an evidence for the might of Allah indicating that as He is able to return a strong and powerful man to the weakness of his childhood, He is able to bring forth the Resurrection and also make the sinners blind and unable to move.

It says:

The Qur’anic term /nunakkishu/ is derived from the Arabic term /tankis/ in the sense of reversing something in a manner that its top comes down and its down goes up in the place of the top. Here, there is a metonymy pointing to the complete return of man to the circumstances of his childhood. From the very beginning of his creation, man is weak and then gradually he grows and develops. During the foetus course every day he passes some new stages and new growth. After his birth he will swiftly continue the path of development from the point of body and spirit, and the God-given strengths and talents, which are hidden inside his entity, will appear one after another.

The course of youth, and next to it, the course of expertness approach, and man will be seated in the climax of bodily and spiritual development. Here, sometimes, the body and the spirit separate their way from each other. The spirit will continue its path of development, while the body begin retardation. But, at last, the man’s intellect, too, will begin the downward march, and little by little, and sometimes quickly, that stages of childhood return. The childish movements begin, and thinking, and even one’s pretext seeking will be like those of children.

The bodily weakness will also come along with them, with this difference that these movements and spiritualities are sweet and attractive when they are from the side of children, because they are some glad-tidings unto their future hopeful lives and that is why they are completely tolerable. But in relation to the old persons, they are pungent, not beautiful, and, sometimes, hateful, or pitiful. Verily, there will come some days which will be very painful, so much so that the depth of its inconvenience is hardly considerable.

This meaning has been pointed out in Surah Al-Hajj, No. 22, verse 5, where it says:

(They will not recognize even their nearest members of their family.) However, the Qur’anic sentence /’afala ya‘qilun/ (do they not then understand) gives a wonderful remark in this regard and it tells men: if this strength and power that you have were not temporary it would not be taken from you so easy. Do know that there is another might over you which is capable of doing everything. You must be careful of yourself before reaching that stage, and before that the mirth and beauty turns into sadness and withered state, make the best of it and provide the provision of the path of the next world in this world, since in the term of weakness, senility, and wretchedness mostly you are able to do nothing.

So, one of the five things that the Prophet (S) recommended Abuthar to be careful of this very thing. He (S) said:

“Do avail five things before five things: your youth before your senility, your health before your sickness, your richness before your poverty, your ease before your affliction, and your life before your death.” ¹

Footnotes

1. 1. Bihar, Vol. 77, P. 77