Zia Sheikh – Tafseer of Surah Yousuf Ayah 6 onward 5262016

I seek refuge with Allah from Satan, the

accursed.

In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the

Merciful.

And thus does your Lord choose you and

teach you from the interpretation of the Hadith.

And He completes His favor upon you and

upon the people of Jacob as it was

completed upon your forefathers before Abraham and Isaac.

Indeed, your Lord is Knowing and Wise.

Indeed, in Yusuf and his brothers were signs

for those who ask.

of eleven stars and the sun and the

moon making Sajdah to him.

He told him, do not relay this dream

to your brothers.

Otherwise, they are going to get jealous and

they are going to harm you.

So, that same conversation, it carries on today

where Jacob is still talking to Yusuf.

Allah SWT says, Jacob AS is

telling Yusuf that similarly Allah SWT will choose

you.

This word, Yajtabika, it means to choose.

Allah SWT, when He chooses somebody, He is

regarded as Mujtaba.

And this is actually one of the names

of the Prophet Muhammad SAW, Mujtaba, Mustafa and

so on.

Amongst many names that he is named with.

So, Mujtaba, the chosen one.

So, the fact that Allah SWT will choose

Yusuf AS in the future means that he

will also be destined towards Prophethood and he

will get this status of being a Prophet

just like Yaqub AS.

So, Yaqub is telling him that this will

happen to you.

And the next thing Yaqub AS is telling

Yusuf AS, Allah SWT is going to teach

you the interpretation of Ahadith.

Ahadith is basically the plural of Hadith.

Hadith means event, something that takes place.

And the plural is Hadith and in the

context in which it has been mentioned, it

is referring to the fact that Allah SWT

will enable him to interpret dreams.

means that Allah SWT will enable you to

interpret the events that will take place.

And he will complete his blessing upon you.

What does this mean?

Again, Yaqub is telling Yusuf AS that Allah

will complete his blessing upon you.

So, the fact is that at the end

of the story of Yusuf AS, Allah SWT

gave him a huge position in this world.

So, this position in the world is a

temporary thing.

But on top of that position, Allah SWT

also bestowed upon him prophethood.

So, the completion of Allah's blessing is like

a crown upon the blessings that he already

had.

So, the completion of the blessing is then

the prophethood on top of the blessings that

Allah gave him in this world.

So, that's one opinion.

The second opinion is, means that the blessing

that Allah gives you, it will never be

removed from you.

It will be completed upon you means that

once Allah has given you the status and

this honor and this dignity and respect in

people's eyes, this honor will never be removed.

And so much so that we are remembering

him today.

We are sending salutations upon him.

We are making dua for him.

We are remembering his story and everything that

took place around him.

So, the fact is that Allah's blessing will

not be removed meaning the honor that you

have been given, it will not be removed.

It has been completed upon you.

And the third opinion is that Allah will

give you both success in this world and

the hereafter.

So, this is what the completion of the

blessing of Allah SWT is upon Yusuf AS.

And also upon the family of Ya'qub.

So, the question is who is the family

of Ya'qub?

None other than the brothers of Yusuf AS,

right?

Because Ya'qub is the father.

He is telling Yusuf, he is advising him.

And the family of Ya'qub then is

basically the brothers of Yusuf AS, the other

sons of Ya'qub and his wife or

wives.

So, this blessing will be completed also upon

the family of Ya'qub AS.

And remember last week I mentioned that what

the brothers of Yusuf AS did, it should

not be taken to mean that they had

an evil streak in them or they wanted

to actually kill Yusuf AS.

It was something that crossed their mind but

ultimately they went to, they resorted to something

that was the lesser of all the evils

that they could think of, putting him inside

a well with the intention that somebody will

take him out and rescue him and he

will be taken away from us and so

we don't have to see him again.

So, they were not bad in the sense

that they are made out to be that

they were so evil.

Rather, jealousy, sibling rivalry made them make this

mistake that they did.

And ultimately what happened was when they made

tawbah, they met Yusuf AS again, they also

partook of the blessings that Allah SWT blessed

Yusuf AS with.

So, Wa'ala Aali Ya'qub means that

ultimately when all of this is said and

done and you will get this status of

success, the family of Ya'qub will also

be benefiting from the same success that you

will get in this world and in the

hereafter.

كما أتمها على أبويك من قبل إبراهيم وإسحاق

As he completed this blessing upon your two

fathers before you, Ibrahim and Ishaq.

So, what happened, we know the family tree,

Ya'qub AS is the son of Ishaq

AS.

Ishaq AS is the son of Ibrahim AS.

So, referring to both of them as fathers

basically means that your father and your great

-grandfathers, your great-grandfather and your great-grandfather,

basically both of them are your fathers, they

were also given this blessing of prophethood just

like you will be given the blessing.

So, again, this is something that is going

through generation after generation.

We mentioned last week a hadith of the

Prophet AS when he was asked, who is

Akramunnas and he said Yusuf AS is Akramunnas,

the most noble of people, who is the

son of a prophet, who is the son

of a prophet, who is the son of

a prophet?

Yusuf, the son of Ya'qub, the son

of Ishaq, the son of Ibrahim AS, all

of them prophets.

So, there is nobody who has had that

kind of a family tree before or after

that.

So, Ya'qub is telling Yusuf that the

same way that your forefathers, Ibrahim and Ishaq

got this blessing of prophethood, you will also

get this prophethood.

قَبْلُ إِبْرَاهِيمَ وَإِسْحَاقَ إِنَّ رَبَّكَ عَلِيمٌ حَكِيمٌ Indeed,

your Lord is Alim, He is All-Knowing,

Hakim, He is All-Wise.

The question is that why Ya'qub is

telling Yusuf that your Lord is All-Knowing

and All-Wise?

Doesn't Yusuf AS already know that?

No, he already does know that, but the

reason that he is doing it is just

an affirmation or a confirmation, not for Ta

'aleem, not for teaching purposes, rather affirming what

he already knows.

Like, you know, a child that tells his

son all the time or his daughter all

the time, I love you so much.

Of course, the child knows that the parents

love him or her so much, but constantly

affirming that, constantly confirming that, so Ibrahim is

telling Yusuf AS, إِنَّ رَبَّكَ عَلِيمٌ حَكِيمٌ Indeed,

your Lord is All-Knowing and All-Wise.

The next ayah, the story actually starts about

how events took place with Yusuf AS.

And in this verse, Allah SWT says, لَقَدْ

كَانَ فِي يُوسُفَ وَإِخْوَتِهِ آيَاتٌ لِّلسَّائِلِينَ Indeed, in

Yusuf AS, meaning in the story of Yusuf

AS and his brothers, are signs for the

people that question.

So, there is a lot of interpretation that

is required here.

First of all, في يوسف, the word is

in Yusuf, what it means is in the

story of Yusuf, not in Yusuf himself, but

في قصة يوسف, in the story of Yusuf

and his brothers, there are ayahs, there are

signs for the people that question.

What is an ayah?

The scholars of Tafsir, they say that the

Quran describes ayah in three ways.

There are three types of ayah that are

mentioned in the Quran.

One of them is the ayah or the

sign of the greatness of Allah SWT that

we can understand from pondering into his creation.

The fact that the sun rises on time,

sets on time, the different stages of the

moon, the fact that we have the different

seasons, we have the plants growing right in

front of our eyes, we see dead vegetation

and plants in winter time and suddenly spring

comes, everything becomes lush and green.

So, these are one form of ayah of

Allah SWT.

So, this is one interpretation of ayah.

The second interpretation are the things that happen,

what is known as in Arabic خارق للعادة,

which means contrary to the habit and contrary

to public and the human perception.

So, a miracle happens, the fact that Maryam,

she had a child without having a husband,

without having any type of intimacy, while she

was a virgin, she was blessed with Isa

AS.

This is an ayah, this is a miracle.

It is contrary to the normal routine and

the sunnah of Allah SWT.

He does these things so that, you know,

he is showing his power to us in

an even more marvelous way than the first

example of ayat that we mentioned.

Everything is marvelous, but the fact that we

see these things, those things in number one,

on a day to day basis, it doesn't

seem that great.

But sometimes, the second type of ayah is

shown to us to show his glory, to

show his might, to show his power.

So, that's the second type of ayah.

And the third type of ayah are ayat

versus in the Quran.

So, when Allah SWT is saying about Yusuf

AS, لَقَدْ كَانَ فِى يُصِفَ وَإِخْوَتِهِ آيَاتٍ Basically,

he is saying that in every stage of

the story of Yusuf AS, there is a

lesson for us to be learned.

There is a lesson for us to be

learned.

In everything, the power of Allah SWT was

being demonstrated.

How at each step of the story of

Yusuf AS, he was protected and he was

taken in a certain direction, even though it

seemed at certain stages that he is going

through such a hard time.

He is spending time in prison for years

upon end.

And he is going through so many difficulties.

But each and every stage was planned by

Allah SWT.

And it was the power of Allah SWT

that took him through those stages and ultimately

gave him the position that he got.

So here, ayaat refers to the power of

Allah SWT through all of the story of

Yusuf AS.

And here, للسائلين, for the people that question.

What does the people that question mean?

In the poetry of old, the Arabic poetry,

the people that question basically referred to, you

know, when people talk about you.

When people talk about a certain individual.

When people like to discuss a certain person.

Okay, celebrity you can say.

That means that that person is interesting.

That person is, people want to know about

him.

So للسائلين, it refers to, again referring back

to the poetry of old, people that questioned

were usually questioning and asking about the celebrities,

the warriors, the famous people, the people that

were chieftains.

So when the people used to make poetry

about themselves, they used to always throw in

that people are questioning about me.

They are asking about me.

They are talking about me.

So للسائلين, it refers to people asking, means

that the story of Yusuf AS is so

interesting that people are asking about it and

they want to know about it.

The second opinion about this word سائل, it

refers to the Jews that wanted to test

the prophethood of the Prophet SAW.

And they used to again and again ask

him various questions.

The whole revelation of Surah Al-Kahf was

based upon questions that were given to the

Kuffar of Quraysh that then asked the Prophet

SAW three questions and those three questions were

answered in Surah Al-Kahf.

So للسائلين, according to some Mufassirin, refers to

the questioning Jews that wanted to test how

much the Prophet SAW knew about what was

mentioned in their scriptures.

So people that question is referring to those

Jews.

And the third opinion is that سائلين refers

to the Kuffar of Quraysh that simply wanted

to give the Prophet SAW a hard time

and wanted to, you know, just question him,

question his authenticity, whether he was a prophet

or not.

So they just used to ask him random

questions.

So in response to those questions, this Surah

was revealed.

So this is the third opinion of what

سائل is referring to.

And also going back to the word آي

again.

آيات, as I mentioned, was miracles.

So the fact is, we mentioned this before

already, the Prophet SAW, he did not know

how to read or write.

And yet he brought the stories that were

found in the previous scriptures right down to,

you know, such accuracy that it was unimaginable

that a person who could not read or

write Arabic, let alone the Hebrew scriptures or

Aramaic or the different languages in which the

previous scriptures had been written.

How could it be that he brought these

things?

So that was a miracle by itself.

And that's why here at the end of

the Surah, Allah SWT addresses the Prophet SAW

and says تلك من أنباء الغيب نوحيها إليك

These were the stories of غيب that we

revealed to you.

ومن كنت لديهم إذ أجمعوا أمرهم وهم يمكرون

You were not with them, O Prophet of

Allah, when they unanimously decided to do what

they did, meaning the brothers, while they were

plotting against Yusuf AS.

You were not with them.

So how did you know?

Because Allah SWT told you, O Prophet of

Allah.

So آية and آيات again and again, each

and every آية that has been revealed about

the story of Yusuf AS is a miracle

in itself that the Prophet SAW is telling

us without any type of mistake, without any

type of contradiction.

The whole story is mentioned, just like it

was mentioned in the previous scriptures.

So this is, inshallah, where we stop, and

we will continue next week.

I pray that Allah SWT gives us the

strength to understand and practice what has been

said and heard.