Fatima Lette – Exploring The Quran For Women Surah Yusuf #09
AI: Summary ©
The upcoming quarterly series of the show Boohoo will cover various topics including the character of a woman in prison, the character of a woman in prison, and the character of a man in prison. The series will start at 6 PM on the following week and will cover various topics throughout the series. The importance of protecting one's reputation and reputation in compromising situations is emphasized, along with the need to submit oneself to Allah's mercy and not wanting to commit a mistake. The series ends with a promise to be helpful and encourage listeners to use their time to learn about the prophets.
AI: Summary ©
So loud.
Bismillahirrahmanirrahim.
Rabbush rahli sadri wa yasari amri wa ahlul
ukrat amni saani.
Yafqa wa qauli rabbi ziddi inma rabbi ziddi
inma rabbi ziddi inma.
Welcome back to exploring the Quran, hamdillah.
Just a quick little announcement for next week,
inshallah, we will be starting halakah at 6.
Yes, because of Maghrib, inshallah.
And then hopefully, I don't know about time
changing, taking one week at a time.
So inshallah, next week we'll start at 6,
because today Maghrib is at 7.05 so
we'll end like right at 7 inshallah.
So with that being said that means we
should just jump right into it.
Last week alhamdulillah we covered the portion of
Yusuf alayhis salaam story where he entered into
prison and entering into prison you know this
is where we see him now do his
first public calling you would say and that
acknowledgement of him being a prophet.
Now we're gonna go into the second portion
of him still being in prison but we're
gonna try to cover about 10 ayaat in
the next 28 minutes inshallah and these 10
ayaats what it really shows us is it
shows us the integrity of Yusuf alayhis salaam.
Remember the last thing that we read was
that Yusuf alayhis salaam helps out this guy
he the two young men they come they're
in prison they ask about their dreams he
helps him out says listen you're gonna be
freed you're good to go and then he
gives him one small task he says when
you go out and you go back to
your employer then make sure you mention me
to your employer make sure you mention me
to their king to which Allah tells us
that Shaitaan caused this man to forget.
So now in verse number 43 we see
that waqal al malikun that the king then
says he has a dream and he says
inni ara sab'a baqaratin simanin that I
saw in my dream that I had seven
cows that were very healthy meaning that they
were kind of big so they had grazed
a lot.
Ya'quluhunna sab'a un'ijaahun and those
big cows were being eaten by seven cows
that were very lean.
Wa sab'a simbulatin hudrin and then there
were seven green ears of corn.
wa lu'ukhra yaabisatin but those seven green
ears of corn were being withered away by
seven corns that were not green and then
he says ya ayyuha al mal'u he
calls to his chiefs the people who are
in charge and he says to them aftuni
fi ru'yaya tell me give me a
judgment okay give me a judgment about my
dream.
In kuntum lil ru'ya ta'burun if
you truly know about interpreting dreams.
So it doesn't make sense to us because
that's typically how dreams go.
They're very all over the place.
One day you're having a dream you're like
getting chased by a police officer and two
seconds later you're eating ice cream like it's
just like a really is not an actual
representation of my dreams at least not that
I can remember but that's how dreams are.
They don't really make a lot of sense
but the king having this dream he felt
that this dream needed to be interpreted which
is why he says if anybody knows the
interpretation of this dream come and tell me.
Qalu they then responded and they said agha
through ahlam that these dreams are too confusing.
We cannot interpret a dream for you it's
very confusing.
wa ma nahnu bi ta'weedil ahlami bil
a'lamin and we do not a'lamin
we're not very skilled in interpreting dreams in
this way because this is so convoluted that
we may interpret something the wrong way.
Qalu ladhi naja minhuma now the guy who
was saved from the two men he comes
and he says what dakara ba'da ummatin ana
unabbi'ukum bi ta'weedihi fa arisidun.
He says oh man I remember Yusuf so
I will go and I'll tell you what
this dream means just give me some time
okay give me some time.
Yusuf wa ayyuha siddiq he goes he says
Yusuf you're so like truthful you know everything.
Aftina fi sab'a bakaratin simanin ya'kuluhunna
sab'un ijaafun wa sab'in simulatin khudrin
wa akhira yabisatin he says tell us about
this dream and it has seven cows who
are very healthy and those seven cows are
eating these sorry those seven cows are being
eaten by these seven lean cows and then
there's these green ears of corn that are
being withered away by another seven green ears
of corn.
He tells us tell us about it.
La'alli arji'u ilan nasi la'allahum
ya'lamun so that I may have this
information and take it back to the people
and they can know what it means.
So Yusuf alayhis salaam responds and he says
qala tarriza'una sab'a sinin da'aban
that you can you will sow or you
will harvest for seven years as usual fama
fama hasadattum fadharroohu fi sunbulihi illa qaleelan mimma
ta'khulun and when you harvest for those
seven years consistently you should take some and
store it and then you should eat very
little from it.
Okay take some of it store it.
The way that we do things is that
whatever we harvest we take it everything that
year.
Okay we have all the strawberries in the
world we're gonna eat all of it.
There's no sense of storing anything but Yusuf
alayhis salaam tells them you should store it.
Thumma yatti min ba'di daalika sab'a unshi
daajun.
After that they're gonna be seven years that
you're not gonna harvest anything.
It's gonna be seven years of famine.
It's gonna be seven years of very a
lot of difficulty.
What are you seeing from that?
There is the seven fat cows that were
very healthy and those cows are being eaten
by the skinny cows.
And what is it saying?
It's saying that the years of famine are
gonna eat up your storage supply.
So you if but imagine they didn't have
a storage.
So they would just have years of famine.
The people wouldn't be able to survive.
So he says that after that ya'kulana
maa qaddamat qaddamtum lahunna illa qaleena min maa
tukhsinun.
That you will eat that but you will
still leave a little bit.
Okay what you stored you still should leave
a little bit.
Why?
Because thumma yatti min ba'di daalika aamun feehi
yughothun nasu wa feehi ya'hsirun.
There will come one year where the people
will have an abundant amount of rain and
they'll be able to press a lot of
fruit.
So leave a little bit from what you
stored to be able to sow more, to
be able to plant more, and you'll be
able to get more out of it.
So this guy he says thank you so
much Yusuf.
That makes sense.
He takes it back to the king.
When he goes to the king, wa qalul
malikun, the king then said o'tuni bihi.
Wow that makes a lot of sense and
this is what's gonna work.
So he says bring him to me.
Meaning that Yusuf alayhis salaam would be free.
Falamma ja'ahur rasulu.
When the guy went and he went he
sent a messenger to go and to collect
Yusuf alayhis salaam.
And when he went to collect Yusuf alayhis
salaam, qala irja ila rabbik.
He said come on let's go the king
is calling.
Fas'alhu maa baalu.
He told him come on let's go.
Yusuf alayhis salaam responded to him and said
no I'm not going.
He says return to your king and fas
'alhu maa baalu naswati allati qata'na aydiya
hunna.
Ask him about what happened to the woman
that cut their hands.
Okay so Yusuf alayhis salaam has an opportunity
to be free and he has an opportunity
to go and maybe there's that opportunity will
open the door to another opportunity but he
says no I don't want to go.
But what did he tell the guy when
he interpreted his dream?
He said to mention me to the king.
Clearly because he wanted his freedom and now
he's getting his freedom but he's saying I'm
not going.
And then he says inna rabbi bikaidihinna alimun.
Because indeed my Lord is all aware and
all knowing of their plan.
Now the question that comes up is why
after all of that effort would Yusuf alayhis
salaam say no to his freedom?
The reality of it is that Yusuf alayhis
salaam lived by integrity and this integrity that
he lived by it didn't matter if he
got freed because of a million different reasons.
So long as his freedom was not truly
for his innocence he didn't want it.
That's the reality of it.
Because imagine he got freed and he went
and he goes he works for the king
and everybody says oh yeah that's the guy
that did that thing but the king saved
him.
He still has this negative thing attached to
him and Yusuf alayhis salaam was not that
type of person.
We know this.
Immediately when he's being in this compromise being
put in this compromising situation the first thing
he does is call upon Allah.
And then when he's put in that compromising
situation a second time what does he say?
He says oh Allah prison is more beloved
to me than what they're calling me to.
So can you imagine how he feels about
his reputation?
And I know sometimes we have a lot
of the conversation of don't care what anybody
thinks about you.
You are who you are.
It's in your heart.
It's between you and God.
That is true.
It is in your heart.
Who are you?
You are who you are.
But you also have a responsibility of protecting
the reputation and the person that was made
you.
You have a responsibility of not being in
compromising situations.
You ever wonder why a lot of rulings
about things that are considered to be very
impermissible.
Allah doesn't just say that it's haram.
He says stay very far away from it.
Yeah one part of it is that sometimes
these major sins are not just about the
actual act itself but about the entire environment
that leads you to it.
But the second part of it is that
if you're there and you're in that company
and you're in that environment and you're participating
in maybe the not haram part of the
environment but when someone walks in on the
surface and on the outside looks compromising then
perhaps maybe you should consider yourself to not
be in a compromising position.
So Yusuf alayhis salaam is a messenger of
God and for him the message and the
mission and the objective of his life and
what he has to preach to the people.
There's a lot of importance that is riding
on that and integrity is the biggest part
of that.
Imagine if the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam
was not trustworthy.
When the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam calls
people to Islam, he calls his family, he
calls the different tribes and he's standing on
Mount Safa and he tells them what would
you say to me if I told you
that there was an army behind this mountain?
And they say to him we would never
even think for a second that you're a
liar.
Why?
Because we know you as Al-Amin, the
trustworthy, As-Sadiq al-Amin, the trustworthy, the
truthful one.
That's what they respond to him.
Then the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam says
to them, I'm here to warn you of
a danger that is more imminent of something
that is even closer and that is the
hereafter.
So you need to submit to the oneness
of God.
But that's what they knew him of.
They knew him to be the person that
had the most integrity.
The one to be so trustworthy.
Because a vessel that brings the Quran to
us has to be trustworthy.
Even Jibril alayhi sallam is known as Al
-Ruh Al-Amin, the trustworthy spirit.
That is what Jibril alayhi sallam is known
to be.
And he's the one who's bringing the Quran
to the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam.
You have that the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa
sallam, there's been many instances in the Sira
that shows his integrity.
But one of the ones that really stuck
with me is after the conquest of Mecca,
there is a man by the name of
Safwan bin Umayyah.
Now Safwan bin Umayyah was a very interesting
person because he had a lot of wealth.
And he was someone who really fought against
the Muslims for a very long time.
His father was Umayyah bin Khalaf, which was
a staunch, he was someone who was also
a staunch enemy against the Muslims.
And when the conquest of Mecca happened, Safwan's
cousin, some of his family members, they became
Muslim.
And when they came, he said I'm not
staying here.
I'm not staying here, this Muhammad guy is
the leader, I've got to go.
So he was actually going to flee because
it was not legal for him to leave,
he was going to flee.
Now his cousin goes to the Prophet sallallahu
alayhi wa sallam and he says, Ya Rasulullah,
I just want you to listen.
Safwan is hard, he's like hard-headed, you
know, he's gonna come around.
Just give him some time, let him know
that he's safe if he stays here.
So the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam says,
yeah, just tell him that he's safe.
His cousin said, see Safwan's not that type
of guy.
You got to give him something that he
can see it.
So the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam gave
him his imamah.
He says, okay, give it to him.
So his cousin goes to him, he says
Safwan, don't leave.
This Muhammad, so his cousin is telling him
you can stay.
He says, no, I know guys like him,
he's not gonna, I'm not gonna be safe.
He says, no, he's giving his word.
He's like, what does his word mean to
me?
He's like, well, he's giving you this thing
that could only come from him to show
that you are safe.
So Safwan says, okay, you know what, I'll
think about it.
So he stays around.
So the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, right
after that, the Muslims were going for a
battle.
And at that point they had done the
conquest of Mecca, there's been a lot going
on.
They needed some more like armor and things
of that nature.
Safwan, again, is a wealthy man.
And he's also someone who was in fighting,
who's in the military.
So he had a lot of these things.
So the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam goes
to him.
And he says, listen, I just want to
borrow some of your weaponry.
I want to borrow some of your armor.
And Safwan says, oh, so this is what
you people do.
You just come and take people's stuff.
Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam says, no, I'm
here to borrow it.
We can write a contract, give me exactly
how much, and I'll bring it back.
He says, okay, are you going to take
it?
Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam says, again, I
told you, I'm here to borrow it.
I'm going to bring it back.
So he writes down, they take a hundred
items from him.
The battle happens, they come back.
When they come back, there were some items
that were missing, some items that were kind
of like dinged, like they had like scuff
marks on them.
Some of them that were completely damaged.
So the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam looked
at him, and he said to him, that
count all the things that you have, and
whatever is missing, let me know.
Whatever is damaged, let me know, and let
us know how much we owe you.
Technically, the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam is
the ruler of Mecca at this point.
Technically, Safwan's a criminal that the Prophet sallallahu
alayhi wa sallam is giving refuge to.
So he shouldn't be allowed to even do
business.
Technically, the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam literally
is the one who's giving him like everything,
housing, and all of these things, because his
other option was to cross the sea.
And you weren't going to cross the sea
with all your weaponry.
You couldn't.
It was not possible.
So technically, the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam
didn't really have to do all these things.
Safwan's quiet and didn't say anything to the
Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam.
The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam then looked
at him again, and he says, listen, I
need you to write it down.
What do I owe you?
And he turns to me, he says, Ya
Rasulullah, O Messenger of Allah.
Safwan had been calling him Muhammad, that guy,
like he had been doing the most.
And now because of the integrity that the
Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam showed him, he
calls him Ya Rasulullah.
And it's so important to realize how far
character does get you.
Sometimes we think in the places that we're
in, the professions that we may be in,
the spaces that we may be in, that
we should walk over people.
Well, I want to get this high in
the ladder and work.
I want to be able to accomplish this
thing.
I want to be able to do that
thing.
And it's about who you know and not
who you are.
But it's 100 percent about who you are.
Not because someone else told you that, because
that's what Allah told you.
Allah tells you that you have to be
mindful of your character.
You have to be mindful of the type
of person that you are.
You have to be mindful of how you
carry yourself.
Not because of everybody around you, but because
of the Day of Judgment.
Because when we go to Allah and we
face him, what are we going to say
about our integrity and ourselves and our heart?
Are we going to present a response and
say, well, Allah, everybody was doing it.
Well, we're at a time where it seems
like most people are okay with killing babies.
What are you going to say?
Yeah, well, it's just, it's the climate of
the work.
Well, we're at a time where people are
getting treated very badly, where people's rights are
being violated.
It's the climate of our time.
Is that what we want to engage in?
Is that what we want to be known
as?
The people that do things just because other
people are doing it?
Because remember when the Prophet ﷺ went and
he preached to his people, and he told
them to believe in the oneness of Allah,
they said, well, my forefathers didn't do that.
And perhaps maybe we're not saying my forefathers,
but we're giving a little bit of that
language here.
So Yusuf ﷺ could have had his freedom
immediately.
But what was more worthy than his freedom
is his character.
I would rather die with my character than
die being a person that does not have
any integrity.
Why?
Because he is a prophet.
And he is teaching us that.
That we, when Allah says you should not
die, do not be a person that dies
unless they submit to Allah.
It's not just about your prayer.
It's your prayer, it's your fasting, it's your
character.
Don't leave this earth having left who you
truly are somewhere else.
Leave this earth taking with you who you
are to present to Allah.
Ya Allah, I tried my best to be
a person of integrity.
Ya Allah, I tried my best to be
a person who's honest.
I tried my best to be a person
who's trustworthy.
I tried my best to be a person
who's kind.
I tried my best to be a person
who if they made a promise, they showed
up for that promise.
That's who we are.
When someone hears a Muslim, it should be
synonymous with, oh I can trust that person.
And let me tell you something here in
America, that's how it used to be.
It used to be that way.
When people would move, they would find Muslim
communities because I can trust them to be
a good neighbor.
I can trust them to look after my
home.
I can trust the Muslim schools because I
knew that they would put as much ihsan
and the best in it to teach kids.
That's what it used to be.
But somewhere along the way we lose our
path.
We get distracted by things that are shiny
and glittery.
Well they say, not everything that glitters is
gold.
It is all an illusion to take you
away from who you truly are.
So then Yusuf alayhis salaam, he says this,
and he says, he then goes, the king
then goes and asks the woman.
And he says to them, مَا خَطُبُ قُلْنَا
إِذْ رَاوَدْتُنَّ يُسُفَةً أَن نَفْسِهِ What happened and
why did you guys try to seduce Yusuf
alayhis salaam and take him away from who
he is?
قُلْنَا, they then said, حَاشَ لِلَّهِ They said,
God forbid.
Now they're saying God forbid.
And then they said, مَا أَلِمْنَا عَلَيْهِ مِن
سُؤْنٍ We don't know Yusuf to be any
type of wrong.
We don't know him to be a bad
person.
حَاشَ لِلَّهِ What we know Yusuf is only
good.
قَالَ تَمْرَعَةُ الْعَزِيزِ Then the wife of the
Aziz comes, and she says, أَلْأَنْ حَسْحَصَ الْحَقِّ
أَنَا رَاوَدْتُهُ أَن نَفْسِهِ وَإِنَّهُ لَمِنَ الصَّادِفِينَ She
says, I'm so happy that the truth is
finally out.
Even though she could have went forward, she
could have.
But it was not her time to come
forward.
Because what Yusuf, remember we said journeys are
journeys are interesting.
They're interesting because there are journeys that Allah
wants you to be on.
So Allah wanted Yusuf to be where he's
at.
He wanted him to be where he's at.
And look at how public it is that
his name is cleared.
Because before, the first time, what did they
do?
They swept it under the rug.
Okay, we just won't talk about it.
You can still stay here.
The second time, Yusuf went to jail.
It became public.
Why?
All of these women are there.
Those same women, they go and they talk
about it.
Now, if Yusuf alayhis salaam were to get
out from the guy just mentioning it to
the king, and he just got out, and
it was a quiet, hush-hush situation, would
people still have that thought?
Potentially.
But now the king is making everybody stand
trial on what happened with Yusuf.
And she says, the truth has come out.
It has been made very clear that he
is amongst those who are truthful.
ذلك ليعلم أني لم أخنه بالغيب وأن الله
لا يحضر قيد الخائنين that Allah swt, she
says, that this, Yusuf alayhis salaam says, that
this happened.
And it happened so that the Azeez could
know that I didn't betray him.
But it also happened because Allah would not
let a plan that is treacherous, a plan
that is terrible, a plan that does evil,
He will not let it prevail.
It will not go forward.
But at the end, and we're going to
end here, it really shows the integrity of
Yusuf alayhis salaam in this last ayah.
And people get a little strange and weirded
out by the ayah.
But the ayah shows us to never forget
you're human.
Yusuf alayhis salaam wraps up this conversation and
he says, وما أبرع نفسي But I will
not claim to be completely free.
He says, I'm not going to say that
my soul is blameless.
I won't say that.
Why?
إِنَّ النَّفْسَ لَأَمَارَتٌ بِسُوءٍ Because your nafs that
calls you to evil will always call you
to evil.
But then he adds something very important at
the end.
إِلَّا مَنْ Except for the one إِلَّا مَا
رَحِمَ رَبِّ Except for what my Lord has
bestowed mercy upon me.
It is because of Allah's mercy that I
didn't commit a wrong.
Because someone could have sat right there and
they could have went into those woman's face
and be like, you're evil, you're the worst
person, I was in jail for this long
because of you, you're so terrible, I hope
the worst things happen to you, and I
hope you're never great.
Just keep going.
You know, why?
Because something bad happened to you, yes, rightfully.
Not rightfully, but you're rightfully angry.
Something bad happened to you, you're upset, you're
annoyed.
This person did what they did.
So that's normally the response.
But Yusuf a.s. says, no, what these
people did, the wrong they called me to,
had I not had God's mercy, I would
have been right there with them.
I would have been there.
And you remember those woman, they were quick
to point fingers.
Oh, look at the wife of the Aziz,
look what she did.
And then when she called them into that
situation, and they were present with the same
situation, she was present, but what did they
do?
Oh, you better go this way, you better
do this wrong.
Your amadur bisur is so important to get
into submission.
Remember, there's three parts of your nafs.
There's nafs al-mutma'inna, this is the
part of you that loves to please Allah.
There's your nafs al-awwama, this is the
part of you that you do something wrong,
it gets mad at you.
Why did you do that wrong?
When really you've been thinking about it, and
part of you is like, should I do
it, should I not?
Do I do it, do I not?
Is it really that bad?
It kind of isn't.
Yes, it is.
You know that back and forth, you know?
You just wanted your brain to turn off.
You know how it turns off?
I would have been lying in a shaitan
regime.
That's how it turns off.
So your nafs al-awwama, she's one foot
in, one foot out.
She doesn't know who she is, okay?
She really doesn't, she's struggling.
And then your nafs al-amadur bisur is
the one that calls you towards wrong.
You ever have such a negative thought about
something, and then you look at yourself in
the mirror, and you're like, how could you?
That's so, why would you think that?
So weird, amadur bisur.
So Yusuf alayhis-salam says, the only way
that your amadur bisur can be rendered into
submission, first and foremost, is by God's mercy.
But how do you get Allah's mercy?
By submitting yourself to Allah.
That is how.
Getting into a routine, someone being busy with
good, right?
Typically, you end up getting into drama and
situations and things that are not good for
you, because you have time.
That's the true honest of it.
Because you have time.
You have time to talk about people.
You have time to be in environments you
shouldn't be in.
You have time to be with those people.
When you are busy, then you won't do
that.
So Yusuf alayhis-salam then says, inna rabbika
furoor raheem.
But another way to submit your nafs al
-amadur bisur is by recognizing that you're not
your mistake.
You're not.
You make a mistake.
You do something wrong.
It's just that, a mistake.
You repent.
You remember that Allah swt is merciful and
Allah swt is all forgiving.
And you then tap into the good that
you have the ability to do.
So I pray that Allah swt allows us
to benefit from everything that we've heard here
today.
I pray that Allah swt forgives us of
our shortcomings.
That Allah swt allows us to have the
character of the prophets.
And Allah swt allows us to be people
who are of good will and good character
and good thought of Him.
I pray that Allah swt alleviates the difficulties
that is happening around the world.
That we've been present for a year witnessing
the genocide and witnessing a lot of the
atrocities.
And these atrocities are the ones that are
in our face.
Can we imagine the ones that are not?
That Allah swt alleviates them of their difficulty
and their hardship.
That Allah swt gives them all jannah for
those.
That Allah swt punishes those who are oppressors
and they've done wrong in the way that
He sees fit.
And that Allah swt allows us to be
people who are risen up with the martyrs
and to drink from the blessed hands of
the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ.
Adhan is going to go off in one
minute.