Tafseer of The Cattle · Al-An'aam · 6:86
And Ishmael and Elisha and Jonah and Lot - and all [of them] We preferred over the worlds.
Important: The Arabic source text is always authoritative. This translation is a study aid and has not been verified by scholars — do not use it as a basis for religious proof or for deriving rulings (ahkam). When in doubt, always consult the Arabic text and a qualified scholar.
The explanation of His statement: وَإِسْمَاعِيلَ وَالْيَسَعَ وَيُونُسَ وَلُوطًا وَكُلا فَضَّلْنَا عَلَى الْعَالَمِينَ (86) ("And Ismāʿīl, and al-Yasaʿ (Elisha), and Yūnus (Jonah), and Lūṭ (Lot); and all of them We exalted above the worlds" (6:86)).
Abū Jaʿfar said: The Exalted — exalted be His mention — says: and We likewise guided, from the progeny of Nūḥ (Noah), "Ismāʿīl," and that is: Ismāʿīl, the son of Ibrāhīm; "and al-Yasaʿ," he is al-Yasaʿ, the son of Akhṭūb, the son of al-ʿAjūz.
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The Qurʾān reciters differed concerning the reading of his name.
The general body of reciters of the Ḥijāz and of Iraq read it: (وَالْيَسَعَ) with a single, undoubled lām.
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Some have claimed that it is the form "yafʿal," derived from the expression "wasiʿa, yasaʿu" (he encompassed, he encompasses). Generally, however, the Arabs do not let "the alif and the lām" (the definite article) precede a name that has this form — I mean: the form "yafʿal" —; they do not say: "I saw al-Yazīd," nor: "al-Yaḥyā came to me," nor: "I passed by al-Yashkur," except under the constraint of poetic necessity, and that too only when praise is intended thereby. As one of them has said:
We found al-Walīd, son of al-Yazīd, blessed, his shoulders mighty under all the sides of the caliphate.
Thus he added the alif and the lām to "al-Yazīd," and that was because he had added them to "al-Walīd," so that he made "al-Yazīd" follow it with the same word-form.
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And a group of the Kūfan reciters read it: (وَاللَّيْسَعَ) with two lāms and with doubling (tashdīd), and they said: when it is read thus, it more closely resembles the non-Arabic names; and they rejected the undoubled reading. They said: we do not know in the language of the Arabs any name of the form "yafʿal" in which an alif and a lām occur.
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Abū Jaʿfar said: The correct reading of this, in my view, is the reading of the one who reads it with a single, undoubled lām, on account of the consensus of the people of the transmissions that this is the well-known form of his name, without the doubling — moreover, it is a non-Arabic name, and such is pronounced as it is. For the addition of "the alif and the lām" is known only with respect to what occurs among the Arabic names of the form "yafʿal." As for the name that is non-Arabic, it is pronounced only as they have named it. And if anything in it is altered when the Arabs pronounce it, only one letter of it is set right, without omission, addition, or diminution therein. And "al-Layasaʿ," when it is doubled, receives an addition that was not in it before the doubling. And secondly: it has not been transmitted from anyone of the people of knowledge, so far as we know, that he said his name was "Layasaʿ," such that it would be doubled upon the addition of "the alif and the lām" which are added for definiteness.
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And "Yūnus" is: Yūnus, the son of Mattā; "and Lūṭ, and all of them We exalted," from the progeny of Nūḥ — and (also) Nūḥ —, for them We made the truth clear and We granted them success therein, and all of them We exalted "above the worlds," that is to say: above the world of their epochs.
