Yusuf (Joseph) Section 1 – Joseph Suffers
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God informed Apostle Muhammad of the past history through revelation
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Joseph’s dream.
Yusuf (Joseph) Verses 1 – 6
بِسْمِ اللَّهِ الرَّحْمَنِ الرَّحِيمِ
In the name of God the Beneficent the Merciful
الر تِلْكَ آيَاتُ الْكِتَابِ الْمُبِينِ
Alif, Lam, Ra. (A. L. R.); These are the verses of the Book (which makes the truth) manifest. (12:1)
إِنَّا أَنْزَلْنَاهُ قُرْآنًا عَرَبِيًّا لَعَلَّكُمْ تَعْقِلُونَ
Verily We have sent it down, the Arabic Qur’an that ye may understand. (12:2)
نَحْنُ نَقُصُّ عَلَيْكَ أَحْسَنَ الْقَصَصِ بِمَا أَوْحَيْنَا إِلَيْكَ هَٰذَا الْقُرْآنَ وَإِنْ كُنْتَ مِنْ قَبْلِهِ لَمِنَ الْغَافِلِينَ
We narrate unto thee (O’ Our Apostle Muhammad!) the most excellent of the narratives1by (means of) what We have revealed unto thee this Qur’an; though thou wert before this of the unaware ones. (12:3)
إِذْ قَالَ يُوسُفُ لِأَبِيهِ يَا أَبَتِ إِنِّي رَأَيْتُ أَحَدَ عَشَرَ كَوْكَبًا وَالشَّمْسَ وَالْقَمَرَ رَأَيْتُهُمْ لِي سَاجِدِينَ
When said Joseph unto his father (Jacob): “O’ my father! Verily I did see (dreamt) eleven stars and the sun and moon, I saw them (all) prostrating unto me. (12:4)
قَالَ يَا بُنَيَّ لَا تَقْصُصْ رُؤْيَاكَ عَلَىٰ إِخْوَتِكَ فَيَكِيدُوا لَكَ كَيْدًا إِنَّ الشَّيْطَانَ لِلْإِنْسَانِ عَدُوٌّ مُبِينٌ
Said he (Jacob): “O’ my (dear) son! (Beware!) Relate thou not thy dream unto thy brothers, lest they plot against thee a plot; Verily Satan unto man is an open enemy!” (12:5)2
وَكَذَٰلِكَ يَجْتَبِيكَ رَبُّكَ وَيُعَلِّمُكَ مِنْ تَأْوِيلِ الْأَحَادِيثِ وَيُتِمُّ نِعْمَتَهُ عَلَيْكَ وَعَلَىٰ آلِ يَعْقُوبَ كَمَا أَتَمَّهَا عَلَىٰ أَبَوَيْكَ مِنْ قَبْلُ إِبْرَاهِيمَ وَإِسْحَاقَ إِنَّ رَبَّكَ عَلِيمٌ حَكِيمٌ
“And thus will thy Lord choose thee and teach thee the interpretation of sayings (dreams), and perfect His grace unto thee and unto the children of Jacob, even as He perfected it to thy (fore) fathers aforetime, Abraham, Isaac; Verily thy Lord is All-Knowing, All-Wise.” (12:6)
Commentary
Verse 1
Alif Lam Ra - (A. L. R.).
‘Kitabun Mubin’ - The Book Making the Truth Manifest. The chieftains of Arabia, just to test the Holy Prophet asked the cause of the children of Jacob (Israel) migrating from Syria to Egypt. This Sura was revealed.
Verse 2
The world was lost in the darkness of ignorance particularly about God and the genuine godliness and Arabia was the darkest spot on earth, but the people of Arabia were proud of their language and particularly of the art of poetry which has been so much developed and popular among the people that they could even speak in poetry very easily. The Qur’an was revealed in the Arabic language - not because it was meant only for the people whose mother tongue was Arabic but as an ever-current challenge to the literary pride of the people to produce the like of it, if they could do it.3
The Sixth Holy Imam Jafar Ibn Muhammad as-Sadiq says:
“Acquire the knowledge of Arabic for the Final Word of God (the Holy Qur’an) has been revealed in it.”
Verse 3
The story of Joseph is called here as the best or the most beautiful of stories. Commentators have given a great many reasons for terming this story as ‘the most beautiful narration’.
The beauty of the narration consists in conveying a great amount of meaning in the shortest possible narration through the use of the most minimum of words with most eloquent hints. The story of Joseph deals with the external manly beauty in a man along with the ideal excellence and the purity of his soul, and a woman (Zulaikha), madly falling in love with the manly beauty to own it for herself for the satisfaction of her carnal desire. The details of the overtures on the part of a woman attempting moral pollution have been so gracefully given in such eloquent hints that the solemnity of the object of preaching the ideal excellence of the character and the model conduct of a divine personality, is fully maintained.
It is given in this story how the external beauty could so powerfully enchant a woman to forget her own position as queen or a high-placed mistress, even if the object of the love be only a slave purchased to serve her household. On the other hand the story preaches how man, if faithfully attached to his True Master and Lord, God, can resist the initiative to any sinful enjoyment even from the one in authority who could provide him with the protection and security needed to carry on the foul game without the least fear of being detected by anyone and at the same offering the hope and assurance of being the nearest and the dearest to the one in whose hands rests the happiness of his physical life.
The narrative provides the best example of a faithful one to his True Lord getting rid of the most powerful and even an irresistible attraction of a Satanic desire, preferring to undergo the misery of imprisonment than to break the moral law by failing in self-control, and thus incurring the displeasure of God. While relating the initiative from Zulaikha, the grace of womanhood has also been defended saying that the beauty of Joseph was so irresistible and attractive that he was termed as a ‘'Noble Angel.’
It is also reported that once the Holy Prophet was seated with his two beloved grandsons Hasan and Husayn in his lap when the Messenger Angel Gabriel appeared and asked as to how much he loved the holy children of Ali and Fatimah to which the Holy Prophet told the Angel that he loved them as his own heart and soul. The Angel informed the Holy Prophet that Hasan would be martyred through poison and Husayn by sword. On being asked as to why and who would martyr Hasan and Husayn, the Angel said that it will be without any fault on their part and it will be by the people who would profess to be his own followers. Perceiving the feelings of sorrow on the face of the Holy Prophet with tears in his eyes, the Angel referred to this Sura and said when brothers have behaved in such way with another brother of theirs what havoc could not be played by those without any such relation.4
This one Sura contains the references to the apostles of God, the Pious men, the Angels, Satan, jinn, men, the cattle, the beasts, the birds, kings and their characters, slaves, prisoners, merchants, the wisemen, the difference in the thinking of the people, craftiness in woman, the attachment to God, the gifted knowledge, the art of the interpretation of dreams, etiquette for the rulers, social conduct, the search for livelihood. It is stated that once Jacob dreamt that a light was radiating from his forehead. When he sought its interpretation, a voice came to him saying that that very night he saw the dream, his wife had a son (Joseph).
Commentators have given many notes of mystic nature connected with the story of Joseph.
When the brothers of Joseph took him into the forest and wanted to slay him, the knives gave a wailing voice saying – “should Joseph be killed, the progeny of Jacob shall be cut off.”
Jacob had a ram of Abraham’s time. When the brothers of Joseph brought the blood-stained shirt, the ram uttered saying that “the blood on the shirt was that of a young sheep and not that of Joseph.”
The house in which Joseph was brought up, since Joseph had been separated, used to give out wailing voices.
Joseph had reared some pigeons. Those birds, remembering Joseph, used to strike their heads on the walls and raised wailing cries.
The brothers of Joseph had reported that a wolf had devoured Joseph. The wolves of the forest reported themselves to Jacob and said that they had nothing to do with the body of Joseph.
When Joseph was thrown into a well, a caravan of some traders was made to go to the well in search of water which effected the rescue of Joseph from the well.
When the wife of the king of Egypt (Zulaikha) fabricated the false charge against Joseph - a suckling babe from the cradle bore witness to Joseph's innocence.5
Considering the abovementioned few facts and the many others connected with this story - the story of Joseph is undoubtedly the best and the most beautiful one.
The concluding words of the verse clearly indicate that what the Holy Prophet possessed of the knowledge was the revelations from God.6
Verse 4
Yacoob (Jacob) had twelve sons and Joseph was the youngest and extremely beautiful. Jacob loved Joseph the most. Joseph’s mother Raheel had died and his aunt who was later wedded to Jacob, had brought up Joseph. The eleven brothers of Joseph were envious of him.
Joseph when he was yet of twelve years of age dreamt that the gates of heaven had become wide open, a great light had enveloped the whole environment, an ocean with huge waves rising in it and fishes of various kinds singing the glory of God, Joseph standing upon the peak of a mountain surrounded with green trees, with streams of fresh water flowing at the foot of it, clad in some garments of light, the keys of the treasuries of the earth being in Joseph’s hands, the Sun, the Moon and Eleven Stars descending down from heaven prostrating themselves before Joseph. When Jacob heard the details of the dream, he advised Joseph not to leak it out to any of his brothers. It is said that the wife of one of Joseph’s brothers was nearby and overhearing Joseph’s relating the dream and conveyed the information to her husband, so the news spread.
Jabir Ibn Abdullah al-Ansari reports that once a Jew of Madina, named Bashan, challenged the Holy Prophet saying, “O’ Muhammad! Let me know what were the names of the stars that Joseph saw in the dream.” The Messenger Angel Gabriel appeared and informed him of the names. The Holy Prophet asked the Jew if he would embrace Islam if he told him the names of the stars to which the Jew agreed. The Holy Prophet disclosed the names of the stars as follows: (1) Hur-ban, (2) Turaq, (3) Zial, (4) Dhu-l-Kitfayn, (5) Qabisth, (6) Wathab, (7) ʿAmud, (8) Faluq, (9) Misbah, (10) Saduh, (11) Dhu-l-Qarh.
Jacob warning Joseph not to leak out the dream, makes it evident that Jacob knew that his other sons would get envious of Joseph and what they would do to get rid of him.
Verse 5
Joseph was wonderfully beautiful and the envy of his brothers had gradually developed into definite hostility and they only waited for an opportunity even to do away with Joseph’s life. When the Omnipotent Lord wills, He can manifest anything in the Universe, let man wonder at it, believe in it or not. Every apostle of God was granted a distinctive excellence, and the divine gift to Joseph was his wonderful personal beauty. It is related that once at night Ayesha (one of the wives of the Holy Prophet) had lost her needle and could not find it. The Holy Prophet placed a finger of his hand before the lamp and the room got so much lighted that the needle was easily found out.
Those whom the Lord Himself had purified7 would naturally be of the embodiments of the Divine Light. The bankruptcy of faith in God in a materialist mind might not believe in the truth, but for the sake of the mental bankrupts void of higher intellect, truth does not cease to be what it is.
Jacob had a tree in his house. Whenever a son was born to Jacob a new branch used to come out of the trunk of the tree and when the child grew Jacob used to detach the branch and give it to the son to use it as a staff. When Joseph was born no new branch came out of the tree. Jacob prayed to God and God sent a heavenly staff through Gabriel specially for Joseph. The other sons of Jacob got envious of Joseph. Once Joseph dreamt that his staff was planted in the earth with the staves of his brothers and his staff rose high into the sky and the other staves remained as they were and a gush of violent wind blew out all the staves of his brothers and his staff remained firm. Joseph awoke with wonder. When the dream was related to Jacob, he said that the position and the status of Joseph would be higher than that of his brothers. This added to the fire of envy in the brothers and they had become further more hostile to Joseph.
Satan is often said in the Holy Qur’an to be an open enemy of mankind.8
