Surah Ya-Sin / Verse 15

The people of the town appealed to the messengers' humanity as a reason to reject their invitation. Their assumption was that a human being could not receive revelation from God. If such a thing were possible, they thought, then they themselves—being human just like the messengers—would also have received it.

Because they found no experience of revelation in themselves, they concluded that no other human being could experience it either.

But sharing the same human nature does not mean that all people receive revelation or are entrusted with a divine mission. One person's lack of experience is not evidence that another person's experience is impossible. Instead of examining the grounds of the messengers' claim, the townspeople treated the limits of their own experience as the measure of what God might do.

The words “The All-Merciful has not sent down anything” express the result of that assumption. God has revealed nothing, they believed; if He had revealed something to human beings, they too would have known about it. On this basis, they accused the messengers of lying.

The name the All-Merciful appears in their statement. Recognising God's existence and perfect attributes does not necessarily mean accepting revelation and prophethood. Some forms of polytheistic belief acknowledged God while attributing the governance of the world to other beings.

Another possible reading is that the people did not themselves use this divine name and that the Quran chose it when relating their words, thereby drawing attention to God's mercy and patience despite their rejection.

Their fundamental mistake was to turn the limits of their own experience and understanding into supposed limits on God's power and will. Rather than seeking the truth, they reasoned that because they had not experienced something themselves, it could not exist at all.