Surah Yusuf (12) - The Best Of Stories 2/15
"Nahnu naqussu 'alayka ahsan al-qasasi bimaaa awhainaaa ilayka haadha al-Qur'an"(12:3) "We do relate unto thee [Muhammad] the most beautiful of stories, in that We reveal to thee this (portion of the) Qur'an".
A'udhu billahi, as-samee', al 'aleem, min al-shaytan al-la'een al-rajim. Bismillah, al-Rahman, al-Rahim. Wa as-sallal-Lahu 'ala Muhammad wa 'ala ahli baytihi, at-tayyibeen, at-tahireen. Allahumma salli 'ala Muhammadin wa aali Muhammad. Dear viewers, salamun 'alaykum jamee'an wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh.
The Holy Prophet peace be upon him has a beautiful tradition in which he says that the best amongst you are those who learn the Qur'an and teach it to others. This book that you and I have been blessed with, this holy Qur'an, many of the time it has been neglected. It is left alone, we keep it aside and we use it when we want something from it, when we want to seek guidance from Allah in istikhara, when we want to be blessed, when we want to send a gift to our marhumeen, we tend to recite the Qur'an. It tends to be quite a selfish relationship with the Holy Qur'an. When we want something, we use it.
But the Qur'an is meant to be there for our guidance. It is a conversation with Allah, Subhana wa Ta'ala, that when you want to speak to your beloved and when you want Him to speak to you, you and I should go to the Qur'an for He is speaking directly to us through His divine words in this holy book.
We have started to discuss the beautiful story of Yusuf in the Qur'an, Chapter 12. We began by looking at certain parts of the Surah at the beginning where Allah, Subhana wa Ta'ala, talks about its revelation and talks about its narration.
Continuing this beautiful story, we understand that it looks at multiple vices that the brothers of use of have. It makes it clear for us that a human can reach such low levels where it is possible that they are even willing to attack their own sibling.
Continuing where we left off from, Allah, Subhana wa Ta'ala,speaks about the dream of use of in verse number four, where Yusuf goes to his father and he mentions to his father that I have seen eleven stars, the sun and the moon bowing down to me.
Normally, when you and I receive good news or we see something great or understand something new, we have an innate nature within ourselves to want to go and share this. And it is only correct that we should go and share that which we have been given the opportunity to learn.
Of course, the Holy Prophet and his family give us certain requirements which we should meet before sharing, that we should know that the person that we are sharing with is worthy of this knowledge or this information, we should know that we are not trying to confuse people by what we are sharing with them, and we should speak according to the intellects of the audience that we have.
Sometimes it is disturbing if an individual ascends a pulpit or begins to speak to a crowd and confuses the crowd or leaves them with questions which are unanswered. This can have an adverse effect. Instead of guiding people and taking them closer to Allah, it can make them doubt Allah. It can make them doubt their religion. So whenever we speak to people, one of the requirements that we need to meet is that we are speaking according to the intellectual level of those individuals, and we do not leave them worse off than when we found them. We bring them closer to Allah, Subhana wa Ta'ala.
For this reason, Ya'qub, 'alayhi as-salam, being a prophet, mentions to Yusuf 'Do not mention this dream of yours to your brothers', because as a prophet, he was aware that this dream meant that God has chosen Yusuf and will make him a prophet or has made him a prophet. And this eleven stars and the sun and the moon bowing down will unfold later on in his life.
These two vices that stand out in this verse, which are clear to you and I, are the vices of pride and jealousy. They tend to come together and as soon as they come within man, it is very difficult to eradicate them from oneself. It eats one's faith as Amir ul-Mu'mineen says, that jealousy consumes one's faith like fire consumes wood.
Somebody is jealous. It actually affects them continuously. They can not sleep, they can not eat, they can not walk, they can not relax, they cannot think properly because they are continuously occupied by another individual. The gifts and the blessings that another individual has. Can you imagine being in such a lowly state that we spend our years worrying about what has been given to others, where we spend our time agitated at the blessings that others receive, instead of thanking Allah, Subhana wa Ta'ala, for what He has given us?
As the Qur'an says that above everyone with knowledge, there is another one greater with knowledge. There will always be somebody above you, but you should always remember that there will always be someone below you as well. If you and I want to keep looking up and say why God has not given us this and that, before we do that, we should look beneath. If we have a house, we should look at those who do not have a shelter over their heads. If we have clothes, we should look at those who do not have clothes. If we have shoes that are tight for us, look at those who run around barefooted.
I remember when the refugee crisis took place and many of the refugees moved to Calais and they were trying to, from Calais come to England and other parts of the world. A group of us had been given the opportunity to go to Calais to try and do a little bit. You know, sometimes when we do good actions, we think within ourselves that we have done something great. But it is only when you realize what other people have done that you see your actions as absolutely insignificant.
And this is what Ahlul Bayt used to. Imam Zain ul-Abideen, 'alayhi as-salam, when he used to worship, lenghty worships during the night. Many a times it is said that he would compare his worship with the worship of his grandfather, Amir ul-Mu'mineen. Once the fifth holy Imam came into his room. Seeing that his father had stayed awake the whole night, the color of his skin and complexion had changed, his eyes had become dry because he had been weeping so much and stayed awake throughout the night. He came to his father and began to weep when he saw his father in this state. So the fourth holy Imam tells Imam al-Baqir, he says, 'Go and get this parchment, go and get this cloth for me, because inside it is written the 'ibadah of our grandfather, Amir ul-Mu'mineen.'
As he opens this parchment, he begins to read within it all the 'ibadah that this great holy Imam, Imam Ali used to do. And then he stopped suddenly and he tells the fifth holy Imam, he says, 'Who can worship like Amir ul-Mu'mineen?' He looks above, he looks above, and he does not become jealous. He looks above and takes inspiration that I too want to become like that. Oh, Allah give me the ability to become like that. When we look at somebody who has been given more than us, we should not tell Allah, 'Take it away from him and give it to me'. This is inhumane. Instead, we should tell Allah 'Give him more and also give me as well'.
When we went to Calais, we saw these individuals who were very much unlike us. You know, when we go to buy clothes, we will make sure they fit very well. Sometimes if they are branded, we will make sure the brand name is showing, it is clear. And even if there is two pieces of cloth that we are willing to buy, two shirts, but one has the brand logo outside and one simply has it on the label. If it is the same price, we may tend to purchase the one that has it externally, simply to make it known to people as well.
These individuals had queued up in a line to get shirts and coats. It was extremely difficult weather to live in at that time. It was raining, it was cold, it was in winter. They were living in these tents. There was foul smells everywhere. There was a father and son who were standing in line for clothes. And when they came to the front, something I saw, which I shall never forget, is that these individuals, when they were simply given clothes, they did not look at whether or not it was branded. They did not look whether it was torn or not. They did not even see whether or not it was the exact size that they needed. They were pleased and ecstatic and happy that in winter they have been given a coat and that's just about it. They did not become jealous of the person next to them.
When I went and I spoke to this lady who was helping them, I said, 'What has brought you here? What has triggered it in your heart to make you want to do good for other people?' This is what this comes down to, having a heart which is soft so that when we see good in others or when we see people in need, we go to assist them. We do not become jealous of them when they have something and we do not.
The lady said that she was a teacher. She had started her Master's degree. She lived up north. She said, 'I could not believe it, that a few hours away from me, people were in this dire state. That is why I came for two weeks to help out.' She came to help out for two weeks. And she said 'after these two weeks, I could not return back. How is it possible that I can leave people in this state?' She said, 'I came back simply to defer my Master's, give up my job, quit my job. I put everything that I owned into storage. I returned my house that was on rent back to its landlord. I took all the savings I had and I moved to Calais. Since then, I have been living here. I have run out of my savings and we live off what people give to us as donations. And we eat the same food that we cook for these refugees.'
This was a non-Muslim. Muslim or non-Muslim, one can still have a soft heart. You and I, as Shi'a of Ahlul Bayt, 'alayhum as-salam, have no excuse because we have the fastest path, we have the soundest path, we have the straight path, the best of guides. It should not be possible that within us, as brothers, as sisters, we should not have within us this jealousy, this pride that I want to be better than another, that I want to bring somebody else down. If somebody is doing good in the community, encourage them, assist them. It is not about me reaching the finish line. It is about somebody from amongst us reaching the finish line. So that I, on the Day of Judgment, can have a say in front of Allah and say that I tried and I did something great. I took part in this individual becoming someone great.
When we went to meet Sayyid Sistani recently in Arba'een, this is one of the pieces of advice he gave. He said when you see somebody else's child excel in their studies, if they became a doctor. Do not turn around and say, why did not my child become a doctor? Do not start looking down at your own children. Do not start having jealousy within you and say that 'why not my child?' Do not have pride and say 'my child, but not his child'. Rather be thankful that someone from amongst you was able to reach such a high station.
It is the same with the reappearance of the twelfth Holy Imam, 'ajal Allahu ta'ala farajahu ash-shareef, may Allah hasten his re-appearance soon and make us among those who are able to understand him and realise him when he reappears. When the Imam re-appears, whether we are alive or not is secondary. What is of primary concern is that somebody from among us is amongst his chosen servants, that we did something in our generations with our children to make someone from our children an Ansar and the help of the twelfth holy Imam.
These vices of pride and jealousy that were harbored within the brothers of Yusuf had taken them to such a low level that they were now willing to even kill their own blood brother. As is mentioned in the Qur'an, this was the first idea that came to their minds, that 'let us kill Yusuf.' Yusuf was seven up to nine, either seven, eight or nine years old, according to the traditions that we have. Can you imagine such a young child, such an innocent child, because of the love that their father showed him, they were willing to kill him? And that was an idea that came to their heads. How is this humanly possible?
How can a brother want to kill a brother? How can a human want to kill another human? It is possible when these vices overtake us and we become imprisoned by our desires, we can not think straight anymore. When these vices govern us, we can not think straight. We become animalistic or like the Qur'an says, even worse off than animals.
As we continue, we will understand and realize that this young child Yusuf was taken to a well and we will look at the eloquence that Allah uses in the Holy Qur'an to leave us at a cliff hanger to allow our imagination to run with the story that is about to unfold. How this young, innocent child was thrown into a well, but how this was all part of the plan of Allah, Subhana wa Ta'ala, to bring this innocent child and pure heart of Yusuf from the pits of the well to the highest points in the kingdom of a king in Egypt.
In this holy month of Ramadan, let us ask Allah, Subhana wa Ta'ala, to purify our hearts from these vices that sometimes are difficult for us to eradicate from within us. Let us pray to Allah, Subhana wa Ta'ala, to, especially at the time of Futur, that he hastens the reappearance of the awaited savior Imam al-Mahdi, 'ajal Allahu ta'ala farajahu ash-shareef.
Wa sall-Allahu 'ala Muhammad wa 'ala ahli baytihi, at-tayyibeen, at-tahireen.
