Zia Sheikh – Tafseer of Surah Yusuf ayah 43 onwards 11142016
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The speaker describes a dream where animals eat grass and cows, and realizes they missed it. The dream represents a hidden lesson from a dream that is revealed to the public, and the meaning of "irteen dream" is discussed. The concept of "ITanads," meaning a person with a combination of all good qualities found in one person, that person is referred to as Um ham, and the word "um minor" means a person who has a combination of all good qualities found in one person, that person is referred to as Um Asset. The goal is to grow as many wheat and corn as possible for the next seven years, and the goal is to use the farm that has been planted.
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I seek refuge with Allah from the accursed
Satan.
In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious,
the Most Merciful.
And the king said, I see seven fat
cows, seven of them eating grass, and seven
of them green and others dry.
O you who are busy, come to me
in my vision, if you are to pass
by the vision.
They said, I am overwhelmed by dreams, and
we do not know the interpretation of dreams.
And he who came from them and remembered
after a nation said, I will inform you
of its interpretation, and you will be sent.
Yusuf, O truthful one, try us with seven
fat cows, seven of them eating grass, and
seven of them green and others dry.
Perhaps I will return to the people, so
that they may know.
He said, You have been planting grass for
seven years, and you have not harvested it,
so leave it in its barn, except a
little of what you eat.
Then after that will come seven fat cows,
eating what you have given them, except a
little of what you harvest.
Then after that will come a year in
which people will be overwhelmed, and in which
they will be pressed.
Last week Yusuf A.S. had mentioned to
the people that had asked him the interpretation
of the dreams.
He had told them the interpretation, and one
of them was the person that was going
to be the person who gave the king
wine in his court.
And he reminded him that when you get
to that position of being the chief server
of wine to the king, then make sure
you remember me, and mention me in front
of him.
But unfortunately this person he forgot, and Yusuf
A.S. stayed in prison for a few
years, until this next incident took place.
What was the incident?
The king, he had a dream, and this
is where it starts off from.
Allah A.S. says, وَقَالَ الْمَلِكُ The king
said, إِنِّي أَرَىٰ سَبَعَ بَقَرَاتٍ سِمَانٍ In this
dream he says that I am seeing seven
healthy cows, وَسَبْعٌ يَأْكُلُهُنَّ سَبْعٌ عِجَافٌ There are
seven weak cows, and those weak cows are
eating the healthy cows.
This is what he is seeing in the
dream.
So again, the king sees in a dream,
there are seven healthy cows, and then seven
cows, weak cows, they come and eat those
healthy cows.
And he also saw in the dream, وَسَبَعَ
سُمْغُلَاتٍ خُضْرٍ وَأُخَرَ يَابِسَاتٍ And seven ears of
corn that were lush and green, and others
which were dry.
So seven others, basically, that were dry.
So seven lush ears of corn, and seven
dry ones.
So this is the dream that the king
had.
So he said, يَأْيُهَا الْمَلَأُ أَفْتُونِي فِي رُؤْيَايَ
إِن كُنْتُمْ لِلْرُؤْيَةَ تَعْبُرُونَ O my people, give
me a fatwa, or give me a ruling,
or give me a decision, or give me
information about this dream, if you are the
people that interpret dreams.
So the word تَعْبُرُونَ, it indicates things that
are hidden.
And then they become exposed.
So this is the word عِبْرَةَ, for example.
What does عِبْرَةَ mean?
We use this word in Urdu also.
So عِبْرَةَ, عِبْرَةَ basically meaning, you take a
hidden lesson from something that happens to you.
So تَعْبُرُونَ, it is from the same root
letter, and it means to interpret or expose
something that is hidden, meaning in this case,
to interpret the dreams.
So the people around the king, they said
أَضْغَافُ أَحْلَام, أَضْغَافُ أَحْلَام, meaning these are all
mixed up dreams.
It's just such a confusing dream.
وَمَا نَحْنُ بِتَأْوِيلِ الْأَحْلَامِ بِعَالِمِينَ And we do
not have the knowledge of interpreting dreams.
So basically they threw up their hands, and
they said we have no knowledge whatsoever about
interpreting dreams.
And especially this dream, it seems very very
confusing.
So they gave up immediately.
And then at that point, when this conversation
took place, that person who had been with
Yusuf a.s., he remembered the exchange that
he had had with Yusuf a.s., and
he remembered that Yusuf had mentioned to him
that mention me in front of the king.
And then he remembered.
So Allah mentions that person.
وَقَالَ الَّذِينَ جَاءَ مِنْهُمَا The person who was
saved from those two, meaning the two that
had asked for the interpretation of the dream,
the one that was saved from them, he
said وَالدَّكَرَ بَعْدَ أُمَّةً And he remembered after
a long time.
The word Ummah, it has many different meanings
depending on the context in which it's used.
Ummah, we know that we are in the
Ummah of the Prophet a.s. So that
means a group of people who follow one
focus, one purpose, that's one meaning of Ummah.
And also Allah s.w.t., he refers
to Ibrahim a.s. as كان أمةً قانطًا
لله حنيفًا He himself was an Ummah.
And Ummah, when it's referring to a person,
it means a person who has the collection,
a combination of all good qualities that are
found in one person, that person is referred
to as Ummah.
But here, the meaning is after a long
time.
Ummah, here in this context, it means that
he remembered after a long time.
And the word وَالدَّكَرَ is actually, the root
letter is ذَكَرَ and grammatically there's a certain
rule that the ذال can be changed into
ذال when certain situations take place and that's
one of those situations.
So, he remembered after a long time, أنا
أُنبِّئُكُمْ بِتَأْوِيلِ I'm going to tell you the
interpretation of the dream فَأَرَسِلُونَ So send me,
meaning send me into the prison so I
can talk to Yusuf a.s. and get
the interpretation of the dream from him.
So, the next ayah, it starts talking immediately
about the conversation that then takes place between
Yusuf a.s. and this person.
So it fast forwards.
So this is one of the habits of
the Qur'an that when there is needless,
there is no need to go into any
discussion, Allah s.w.t minimizes the conversation
very much.
And in this case, he asked permission from
the king, send me and then in the
very next ayah, he's right in front of
Yusuf a.s. So, Allah s.w.t
could have said, well, the king asked him
what was the permission for and then he
gave him written permission and then he went
all the way to the prison which was
so many miles away.
And then he talked to the guards and
then the guards let him in and then
he went down the flight of stairs and
he looked for all of the cells in
which the prisoners were, then he found Yusuf
a.s. So all of this is basically
needless and it has no purpose behind it,
all of this talk.
So Allah s.w.t, when there is
a need to omit needless talk, Allah s
.w.t omits it and that concept of
omitting this talk is called ijaz, in Arabic,
in Balagha, to omit things which are not
needed, that is called ijaz.
And then also, opposite of that sometimes happens.
The opposite is what?
When Allah s.w.t wants to discuss
something in great detail.
For example, he may want to describe Jannah
in great detail.
And there are many many verses in the
Quran that bear testimony to this, where Allah
s.w.t wants to talk about Jannah,
when people are listening and hearing about paradise,
they want to enjoy and they want to
hear more about paradise.
So he continues and talks about many many
different aspects of paradise and then sometimes he
wants to emphasize all of the different types
of punishments that are going on in *,
so he emphasizes by lengthening the description of
it, so that is called itanad, the lengthening
of the verses and mentioning more and more
detail, that is referred to as itanad and
Allah s.w.t will do that on
occasion.
So two different extremes, ijaz and itanad.
Ijaz, minimizing, itanad, lengthening, why?
Because the person who is reading, he is
interested in knowing more and more in detail.
So here we have the example of ijaz,
that the god or the king, he gives
him permission and immediately in the next ayah,
he is in front of Yusuf a.s.
So he says to Yusuf a.s, Yusuf,
O truthful one, so siddiq, it is more
broader than sadiq, sadiq means a person who
is truthful in his tongue.
But sadiq means a person who is truthful
in aqwal and a'mal, meaning that his tongue
is truthful and his a'mal and the deeds
that come from him and emanate from him,
they are also truthful.
In the sense that he is an honorable
person in every aspect of his life.
He uses his eyes honorably, he uses his
hands honorably, he doesn't steal and he basically
earns a trustworthy living, honest living.
So his feet are trustworthy and the a'mal
that come from his feet, they are trustworthy.
So siddiq is a combination of truthfulness in
aqwal and a'mal.
So that's the difference between sadiq and siddiq.
So obviously when this person spent time with
Yusuf a.s in prison, he saw both
of these things from Yusuf a.s. He
was truthful of tongue and of course the
deeds that came from him being a prophet,
they were also truthful and good and honorable.
So therefore he knew that he was siddiq.
So Yusuf a.s, he says to him,
Yusuf, O truthful one, give us this fatwa,
give us this ruling about this dream.
About these seven healthy cows and seven weak
cows are eating them.
And seven lush and green ears of corn
and others which are dry.
Others which are dry.
لعلي أرجع إلى الناس لعلهم يعلمون.
And here the wording used is maybe.
Maybe I can go back to the people
and maybe they can learn from this and
they can understand.
So basically when he's asking the question, he's
not sure whether he'll get the correct answer
or not, so he is kind of apprehensive.
So he uses this wording terminology, لعلي, maybe
I can go back to the people, return
back to them.
لعلهم يعلمون and maybe they can get the
knowledge of this.
قال تزرعون سبع سنين دعبا.
So Yusuf a.s, he interprets this dream.
And he says that you're going to make
a زراعة, meaning you're going to farm continuously
for seven years.
سبع سنين, seven years.
دهبا, دهبا means موظفة, continuously.
So Yusuf a.s is instructing them for
the next seven years, make sure you work
hard and you do the best that you
can to make the best crops possible for
yourself.
Grow as much as you can.
Grow as much corn, grow as much wheat
and whatever you can, grow it for the
next seven years.
And then he says, فما حصدتم فذروه في
صنبلي.
Whatever you harvest, don't take it, take the
seeds or the wheat and so on, don't
take it out of its shell.
فذروه في صنبلي.
Leave it in its shell and what will
that do?
It will keep it preserved and it will
not let it go bad.
فذروه في صنبلي إلا قليلا مما تأكلون.
Only take out from the shell that what
you're going to consume, meaning what we call
nowadays austerity measures, right?
Austerity is a well-known term, especially since
the credit crunch that took place a few
years ago.
Austerity in Europe, austerity in the U.S.
and so on.
So he's saying to them that for seven
years you're going to get a good crop,
but make sure that you only consume from
that what you need.
The rest you keep it in its shell,
let it get preserved because what's going to
happen is that ثُمَّ يَأْتِي مِن بَعْدِ ذَلِكَ
سَبْعٌ شِدَاتٌ.
Then what's going to happen after that is
you're going to get seven severe years, seven
hard years, meaning you're not going to get
any rain for seven years.
يَأْتِي مِن بَعْدِ ذَلِكَ سَبْعٌ شِدَاتٌ.
And these seven years will eat what you
have sent forward to them, meaning that the
wording used is as if the years are,
they have a life of their own and
they're consuming the crops that have been preserved
and saved in the seven good years.
But what it means is that in those
seven years you're going to consume the wealth
and the crops and the food and the
wheat and the corn and everything that you've
preserved, you've kept it and those seven years
you're going to utilize that crop that you've
kept.
يَا كُلَّ مَا قَدَّمْتُمْ لَهُنَّ إِلَّا قَلِيلًا مِّمَّا
تُحْسِنُونَ.
Except for that which you have saved, that
will not be consumed by the years, basically
you're going to be able to use it
at that time.
And then what's going to happen, ثُمَّ يَأْتِي
مِن بَعْدِ ذَلِكَ عَامٌ فِيهِ يُغَاثُ النَّاسُ وَفِيهِ
يَعْصِرُونَ.
And then what's going to happen, after seven
years of hardship and drought, a year is
going to come in which يُغَاثُ النَّاسُ غَيْف.
غَيْف means a very strong rainfall is going
to come وَفِيهِ يَعْصِرُونَ.
And in this year يَعْصِرُونَ people will squeeze,
meaning squeeze means here that squeeze oil from
the olives, squeeze juice from the fruits, and
basically they will have a lot of crops
and everything after this seven years of hardship.
So this was the dream of the king
and it was interpreted by Yusuf a.s.
and basically this is exactly what happened.
That for seven years they had all of
this good crop and seven years of hardship
and then after that Allah bless them with
rain and then a good crop again.
So this person went back to the king
and he explained this dream to him and
at that point the king said, you know
obviously asking the question where did you get
this interpretation from and when he was told,
the king says وَقَالَ الْمَلِكُ تُونِي بِهِ Bring
this person to me.
This person that you got this interpretation from
bring him to me.
And that's where inshallah we will continue with
next week after that Allah gives us tawfiq
to understand and practice what has been said
and heard.