Zia Sheikh – Lessons from the character of Yusuf A.S Ramadan Khatira Day 12
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AI: Transcript ©
Before we start, there was a request for
a du'a, my brother is in Baila
Hospital, he is in critical condition, so everyone
is requested to pray for his quick recovery,
Inshallah.
I believe it was a stroke that he
had, may Allah SWT grant him shifa.
So yesterday I talked a little bit about
Yusuf A.S. and his interpretation of the
dreams for two people and today, Inshallah, I
am going to go into the other dream
that he interpreted for the king.
I mentioned that briefly yesterday and I think
it piqued some people's interest so I am
just going to go into that right now.
So the king of the time, he saw
a dream.
What was the dream?
He saw, Inni araa sabaa baqaratin simanin ya
'kuluhunna sab'un ijaafun wa sabaa sunbulatin khudrin
wa ukhariyya bisad.
He said that I saw a dream, now
he is telling his people around him, his
wazirs, his advisors and so on, that I
saw a dream in which there are seven
cows that are healthy and I saw seven
cows which are weak.
Seven cows, healthy, meaty, full of milk and
just, you know, very pleasing to the eye
and then seven weak, thin cows which are
just skin and bones.
What happens is that those weak cows, they
eat the healthy cows.
This is one part of the dream and
then he saw seven ears of corn or
seven wheat, seven ears of wheat which were
lush and green and seven which were completely
dry and according to some riwayat, these dry
ears of corn or wheat, they ate the
healthy ones, the lush and green ones.
So he is surprised thinking what could this
dream mean?
So he asked his people around him that,
Ya ayyuhal mal'u afthuni fee ru'yaya
in kuntum lil ru'yaa da'aburun.
Oh my people, my advisors, tell me the
interpretation of this dream if you do indeed
interpret dreams.
So everyone is baffled because the dream is
defying all forms of logic.
If a cow is going to eat, you
know, the healthy cow is supposed to eat
the weak cow, right?
Not the other way around.
So everyone is surprised.
So they say, abghathu ahlam wa ma nahnu
bi ta'weelil ahlami bi'alimin.
These are a bunch of dreams.
Abghath is the plural of dighth and dighth
means a bunch.
So these are bunches of dreams which are
confusing to us and we have no knowledge
about the interpretation of dreams.
It was at this point that the one
that was in prison with Yusuf alayhi salatu
wasalam, he remembered that Yusuf had interpreted this
dream for me and he had told me
that you are going to be a servant
in the king's palace and you are going
to be serving him wine.
Remember me when you get out and he
had forgotten for seven years.
Seven years he had forgotten completely and now
he remembered.
So he said to the king, wa qala
allatheena ja'a minhuma waddakara ba'da umma, the
one that was safe from those two, from
those two that were in the prison with
Yusuf alayhi salatu wasalam and he remembered after
a long time, ba'da umma, umma here means
a length of time.
He said, ana unabdi'ukum bi ta'weelihi
fa'arsiloon.
I will tell you the interpretation of the
dream so send me and basically means send
me to Yusuf, send me to the prison.
I know a prisoner there who can tell
you the interpretation of the dream.
So he comes to Yusuf alayhi salatu wasalam
and says, Yusufu ayyuhasiddiq, oh Yusuf, oh trustworthy
one, oh truthful one.
Aftina fee sab'i baqaratin simanin, give us
a fatwa.
Aftina, the real meaning is, give us the
fatwa, give me a ruling.
But here obviously it means the interpretation of
the dream.
Give us the ruling of sab'i baqaratin
simanin ya'kuluhunna sab'u na'ijab, about
a dream in which there are seven healthy
cows but they are eaten by these weak,
seven weak cows.
Wa sab'a sumbulatin khudrin, wa ukhra yabisat,
and seven ears of wheat, and seven which
are lush and green, and seven which are
dry.
La'alli arju ilan nasi, la'allahum ya
'alamun, so that I can go back to
the people so that they can find out
what the interpretation of the dream is.
So the question is, now Yusuf al-Islam,
he's been in prison for seven years, he
could put a condition that first of all
he didn't scold the person, that now you
remember me after seven years, okay, I told
you seven years ago remember me, you come
back to me after seven years, you expect
me to interpret your dream after seven years,
he didn't scold him.
And the second thing is, he could have
made a condition, okay I'll tell you the
interpretation of the dream, but you have to
set me free.
I need some kind of guarantees or sureties
that I'm going to be let out of
the prison because I don't want to stay
here for the rest of my life, but
he didn't.
He immediately interpreted the dream.
So the lesson we learned from this is
that if Allah SWT has given you some
type of skill, there doesn't necessarily have to
be some kind of payback or some kind
of recognition or some kind of monetary compensation
for you to benefit from getting that skill
utilized for the benefit of the community or
for the benefit of the society at large.
Allah SWT gave you this skill, so utilize
the skill, if you get something for it,
that's good, otherwise expect your reward from Allah
SWT.
This is the first thing that we learned
from this episode or this part of the
story of Yusuf AS.
So he interpreted the dream.
He said, You're going to have seven years
of good crops.
Seven years you'll get rain, a lot of
crops, healthy animals, seven years.
So what you're supposed to do during those
seven years, you're supposed to leave the ears
of corn and the wheat and everything in
their shells.
For what?
You're supposed to leave them and store them
for seven years that are going to come
later on.
And those, that accumulated wheat and corn and
everything, you're going to ration it and use
it for seven years that are going to
be hard for you.
You're going to have a drought difficulty, and
at that point, you're going to need the
wheat that you've accumulated and all the different
grains that you've accumulated.
Leave it in its shell, except a little
that you're going to eat.
Then after that, seven hard years are going
to come and they're going to eat the
years that came before.
Eat the years, this was the interpretation of
the dream.
The seven cows eating the healthy cows and
the seven years of corn which were weak
and dry eating the healthy corn or the
wheat, this was the dream that these seven
years are going to come and they're going
to eat the healthy years or the years
in which you were given a lot of
crops.
And then after that, except a little that
you have gathered, that is going to remain.
And then after that, a year is going
to come in which people are going to
be given rain and then they're going to
be able to, the real actual meaning is
to squeeze.
And you can squeeze fruit, you can squeeze
olives and things and corn to get oil
out.
So and according to some Mufasireen, it means
also to milk cows and goats and so
on.
You'll be able to do that in the
eighth year.
After the seven years of hardship, you're going
to get this one year.
So now this person, he goes back to
the king and he tells him the interpretation
of the dream and the king says, bring
this person to me.
Because in those days, people relied on fortune
tellers, soothsayers, people that could look into the
stars and tell the future so that their
kingdoms could be protected.
Immediately this king saw the talent of Yusuf
A.S. and said, bring him to me.
Now the amazing thing is that when he
is about to be set free and the
person comes to set him free, Yusuf A
.S. says, hold on a minute.
I'm not going to leave the prison.
Why?
Until you clear my name, I'm not going
to leave the prison.
What does he say?
When the messenger came to Yusuf A.S.,
he said, go back to your lord, meaning
the master of the king and ask him,
what was the situation of those women that
cut their hands?
If you know the story of Yusuf A
.S., there was a situation where Yusuf was
displayed in front of a lot of women
and they were given knives to cut the
fruit and instead of cutting the fruit, they
were so bewildered and amazed at his beauty
that they were cutting their own hands and
not really realizing it.
They were hypnotized by how handsome he was.
So he says here, and at that point
when all of these women are crazy for
him, he says that I want to go
to prison.
Allah saved me from this fitna and this
problem and Allah accepted his dua and put
him in the prison.
But then, you know, the point was that
he wanted to clear his name and he
wanted to have a clean record that he
had nothing to do with the situation.
He was clean.
His intentions were clean and he had no
intention of engaging in any type of illicit
relationship and because of that, he ended up
in prison.
So he wanted to get his record clean
and he's not going to leave the prison
before that.
So again, this is what happened.
Again, it goes against our natural instinct that
if you've been in prison for seven years,
you will take every opportunity, the first opportunity
to go out and get your freedom.
So he said that what was the situation
of the women that cut their hands?
Indeed my Lord is fully aware of their
plots and their planning.
Now the king says to all of those
women, what's your testimony when you tell me
that you've been in prison?
You tried to seduce Yusuf A.S. What
happened?
So then, the women obviously, they felt embarrassed
that because of them, the person who has
been suffering in prison for seven years, they
said, No, we didn't see anything bad from
his character.
And the Imra'atul Aziz, the main instigator
of all these problems, she was also part
of clearing his name.
She said also, He said, I was the
one that tried to seduce him and he
is truthful.
There is nothing wrong with this person's character.
So now, a few ayahs later, first of
all, in the ayah before, the king said,
Bring him to me.
When he got the interpretation of the dream,
he said, Bring him to me.
But now, Yusuf A.S. is taking a
stand for his character and he wants to
clear his name and he will not leave
the prison until his name is cleared.
The king is even more adamant that he
wants this person to be part of the
people around him.
And he said, The king said, Bring him
to me.
I want him to be purely for me.
I want him for me only.
I want this person to be my right
-hand man.
So again, like we said at the beginning
of this surah, this Ahsanul Qasas, it has
so many stories, so many lessons that we
can learn from this surah.
And these are a couple of lessons that
we can learn.
But let's go back to a little bit
more of this, that how Allah SWT planned
this thing.
One of the things that we heard at
the beginning of the surah, I didn't mention
it, but Allah says at the beginning of
the surah, Allah SWT was in charge of
the affairs of Yusuf A.S. But most
people do not know.
And the human being, when he goes through
difficulty in his life sometimes, he loses hope.
And he thinks that, What's going on with
my life?
What's going on with my situation?
Allah SWT has neglected me.
He's rejected me.
He's not listening to my du'as.
Look at the story of Yusuf and how
he was languishing in a prison for seven
years.
How he was thrown out of his house,
left his family, and was in a well,
was a slave for a while.
Then he was in prison for seven years.
But then the plan of Allah SWT was
such that he got Yusuf A.S. out.
Who was the one that put the two
people in the prison with Yusuf A.S.
and he interpreted their dreams?
Who was the one that made the king
have the dream?
Who was the one that made that young
man who was with Yusuf A.S. remember
that Yusuf A.S. is in prison and
he interprets dreams?
It was obviously Allah SWT.
So when we have any type of situation,
the questions we need to ask ourselves are,
number one, am I being obedient to Allah
SWT?
Is there any kind of disobedience in my
life?
If not, then that's fine.
I'm on the right path.
I need to be patient.
Maybe I need to give sadaqah.
But Allah SWT is in control.
Obviously, I try to get myself out of
the situation too.
But ultimately, we leave everything to Allah SWT
that he is the one in charge and
he will make things better for me.
Indeed, with every difficulty, there is ease.
And this is one of the big lessons
that we learn from the story of Yusuf
A.S. And then, like I said yesterday,
the story goes on that Yusuf A.S.
becomes in charge of the whole wing, the
department of agriculture and he then goes on
to meet his brothers and then all of
his family come and they're reunited.
Beautiful story, which obviously we don't have time
for.
Just as a matter of interest, on Thursday
nights, I'm doing Tafsir of Surah Yusuf.
I've just started it.
So inshallah, if you want to be part
of it after Ramadan, you can listen to
it inshallah in its entirety in detail.
I pray that Allah SWT gives us tawfiq
to understand and practice what is being said
and heard.