Zia Sheikh – Tafseer of Surah Yusuf Ayah 85 onwards 192017
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The use of the name of Allah in Arabic language is discussed, including its use in cases of loss and grief, the concept of " har exceed," meaning someone who experiences a loss, and the importance of finding happiness and relaxation in one's return. The Prophet s.a.w. emphasizes the importance of closure, learning, and letting people take things that they want to avoid. The importance of remaining in a sadness and the use of psychology for loss and loss of hope is also discussed. The segment concludes with a recap of the upcoming week's edition of a book.
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In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious,
the Most Merciful.
They said, By Allah, do you remember Yusuf
until you are dead?
He said, I only complain of my grief
and sadness to Allah, and I know from
Allah that which you do not know.
O children, go and feel for Yusuf and
his brother, and do not despair of Allah's
mercy.
Verily, none despair of Allah's mercy except the
disbelieving people.
So when they entered upon him, they said,
O mighty one, we have been touched by
adversity, and we have come with a goodly
merchandise, so give us full measure, and give
us charity.
Verily, Allah rewards those who give charity.
He said, Do you know what you have
done to Yusuf and his brother?
You are ignorant.
They said, Are you really Yusuf?
He said, I am Yusuf, and this is
my brother.
Allah has indeed favoured us.
Verily, whoever fears Allah and is patient, Allah
does not waste the reward of the doers
of good.
So what we have seen so far is
that Yusuf, obviously he is in Egypt, and
now he also kept Binyamin, his blood brother,
with him, and the third brother also refused
to come back home, and obviously when the
brothers come back and inform Yaqub about what
happened, he is very upset, and he is
crying, and he is emotional.
So at that point, Allah carries on the
conversation about what the brothers and the rest
of the family said to Yaqub.
So they said, I swear by Allah, and
again I mentioned last week, it is one
of the words used to take an oath.
These all three words are found in the
Arabic language.
So usually it is used in the instance
where people want to show astonishment at something.
So obviously the fact that Yaqub is still
remembering Yusuf after all of these years, and
not forgetting about him, they said, I swear
by Allah, or we swear by Allah, you
are going to continuously remember Yusuf.
I mean are you never going to forget
about him?
There is always a time or a point
in history where a person forgets, and he
gets over the loss of somebody, he gets
over the loss of a loved one, but
you continuously remember Yusuf.
So what is the situation?
حَتَّى تَكُونَ حَرَضًا أَوْ تَكُونَ مِنَ الْحَالِكِينَ So
much so that you are going to become
Harad.
Harad in Arabic, it refers to a person
who gets close to death because of deterioration,
because of illness, because of worry, because of
grief.
This is called Harad.
Until you become Harad, أو تَكُونَ مِنَ الْحَالِكِينَ
or you will even become from the people
who die or get destroyed because of the
worry and the grief that you are going
through.
And أو تَكُونَ مِنَ الْحَالِكِينَ can also be
in the meaning of حَتَّى تَكُونَ مِنَ الْحَالِكِينَ
So much so, you are going to become
close to death, and even so much so
that you will even become a person who
loses his life because of the grief that
he is going through.
قَالَ إِنَّمَا أَشْكُوا بَثِّي وَحُزْنِي إِلَى اللَّهِ Yaqub
a.s. responded by saying that I am
simply stating my grief and my worry to
Allah.
It is not that I am complaining to
people around me.
My complaint and my du'a and my
sorrow is simply addressed to Allah that He
removed this sorrow from me.
So the word بَثْ, بَثْ it refers to
that kind of a worry that is very
impossible to conceal.
So a person who is really worried, even
though he tries to conceal that type of
worry or that type of grief, he cannot
succeed in concealing that worry that in Arabic
is known as بَثْ.
So he said I am complaining of my
بَثْ and my حُزن to Allah.
My grief or worry to Allah.
And remember the people who are listening maybe
to my Friday khutbah, I used this word
and I said that wherever Allah s.w
.t. uses the word in the Quran using
حُزن, it is always in the negative.
وَلَا خَوْفٌ عَلَيْهِمْ وَلَا هُمْ يَحْزَنُونَ وَلَا تَهِنُوا
وَلَا تَحْزَنُوا Allah s.w.t. forbids us
from being worried.
The only verses in the Quran that talk
about حُزن without negativity is the worry that
Yaqub a.s. is expressing over the loss
of his son.
So maybe Allah s.w.t. is trying
to give an indication that worry and grief
at this point maybe is justified.
It is justifiable that a person who loses
his beloved son, beloved daughter, beloved child, to
be worried at that point, there is complete
justification for it.
Other than that, Allah s.w.t. always
tells us do not take this حُزن, do
not have any type of worry.
Allah s.w.t. basically is in control.
But when it comes to the loss of
somebody as dear as a son or a
daughter, then obviously it is very difficult to
hide that worry and that grief.
So he said, meaning my complaint and my
statements are addressed to Allah s.w.t.
and I know from Allah s.w.t.
what you do not know.
So what does that actually mean?
That if, for example, he knows that Yusuf
a.s. is alive, then why is he
worried?
Why is he so upset?
So the answer to that question is he
does not actually know where Yusuf a.s.
is because Allah s.w.t. has not
told him.
But there is something which is known as
intuition.
Intuition, especially when a father, in the depths
of his heart, he knows that my son
is alive somewhere but I do not know
where he is.
So he says, I know from Allah s
.w.t. that he exists and he is
alive.
And also, remember right at the beginning of
the surah, Yusuf a.s., he told him
about his dream.
I saw in my dream, I saw eleven
stars and the sun and the moon, they
were all prostrating to me.
So he knew the interpretation of that dream.
And that dream had not yet come true.
So he knows that dream is to come
true, but he does not know when it
is going to come true.
So he says, I know from Allah s
.w.t. what you do not know.
So this is basically his response to those
people that told him that you are going
to destroy yourself in the worry of Yusuf
a.s. Then he turned to his sons
and said, Oh my sons, go and
search for Yusuf.
The word tahassus, it is to search for
something.
And it is from the word his.
What does his mean?
His means the senses.
The five senses, for example, His is the
singular and the plural is Hawas.
And in Urdu we also call them Hawas
Khamsa, the five senses.
But the Mufassirin actually say there are more
than five senses.
The five senses are the ones that are
apparent, but also Allah s.w.t. has
given us other senses, internal senses, intuition you
can say, that sometimes Allah s.w.t.
brings to the forefront.
A person, he feels that, for example, it
is very common in twins.
That a person, for example, a twin living
in one side of the country gets a
headache and he calls or she calls her
twin sister and finds out that she also
has a headache on the other side of
the country.
These things are very, very common.
So this sense is a type of internal
intuition that a lot of people have.
So Tahassus means that, oh my sons, use
every one of your senses that Allah s
.w.t. has given you to search for
Yusuf.
فَتَحَسَّسُ مِنْ يُوسُفٍ وَأَخِيهِ And also search for
his brother.
وَلَا تَيْئَسُ مِنْ رَوْحِ اللَّهِ And do not
lose hope from the Rauh of Allah s
.w.t. What does Rauh mean?
There is the word Rauh and there is
the word Reeh.
Rauh means a gentle breeze.
That a person, he sits in that breeze
and he feels comfortable and he feels relaxed
when that breeze hits him.
So this is Rauh.
And the Reeh basically means the wind which
is a little bit strong, blustery, a person
doesn't feel too comfortable in it.
So what it means by Rauh here, it
is basically an indication or a metaphor for
the mercy of Allah s.w.t, the
gentle breeze of Allah s.w.t that
will make them happy and that will make
them overjoyed.
Meaning search for this breeze, search for that
relaxation that I'm looking for, search for the
happiness that I'm seeking in the return of
my sons.
وَلَا تَيْئَسُ مِنْ رَوْحِ اللَّهِ And do not
lose hope from the Rauh of Allah s
.w.t. Meaning the happiness that Allah s
.w.t has given us which could be
compared to this gentle breeze that you would
enjoy.
إِنَّهُ لَا يَيْئَسُ مِنْ رَوْحِ اللَّهِ إِلَّا الْقَوْمُ
الْكَافِرُونَ Indeed, only the disbelievers, they lose hope
in this Rauh, in this happiness and the
relaxation that Allah s.w.t could give.
So this word Kafirun, basically, obviously we know
that it means disbelievers but it also can
imply the people who are ungrateful.
So really the reality is that when a
person has Iman in Allah s.w.t
the biggest of the hurdles and the biggest
of difficulties they become easy for him to
adopt, to bear.
And a person who has less hope and
does not have a connection with Allah s
.w.t he becomes despondent and he loses
his hope, he becomes depressed and so many
things happen to a person who does not
have that connection with Allah s.w.t.
And so really in Islam Allah s.w
.t has given us many many ways to
kind of deal with tragedies and difficulties and
you know there are many hadith that talk
about tragedies that come to a person what
kind of difficulties can come to a person,
a person was hoping to get something and
he didn't get it.
For example, he was hoping to get a
promotion which would have doubled his salary and
he was very hopeful of getting that promotion
at work he didn't get it.
So this is something that a person really
becomes upset over or a person loses something
very near or dear to him so losing
something that is also a difficulty that happens.
So the Prophet s.a.w. he mentioned
both of these things in a hadith وَعَلَمْ
أَنَّ مَا أَصَابَكَ لَمْ يَكُنْ لِيُخْطِيَكَ وَعَلَمْ أَنَّ
مَا أَخْطَأَكَ لَمْ يَكُنْ لِيُصِيبَكَ And
whatever passed you by and you missed it
you are never going to get it anyway
So this is mentioned in a hadith and
this is what a believer has to believe
in That promotion that I was dreaming about
it was not written for me in the
first place Allah s.w.t. did not
write it for me and the thing that
I lost that was near and dear to
me a child that I lost or money
that I lost or a car that was
involved in an accident so that was going
to get lost anyway This thing was written
for me to happen and I could not
have escaped it So these are the phrases
that we should also keep in mind The
hadith goes on to say رُفِعَةِ الْأَقْلَامِ وَجَفَّةِ
الصُحُفِ The pens have been raised meaning the
writing that the angels did writing your taqdeer
they have been raised from the pen وَجَفَّةِ
الصُحُفِ and the paper, the ink on the
paper basically has dried meaning whatever has been
written is going to happen to you obviously
that doesn't mean that we stop doing whatever
it is that we do precautions and adopting
things that we are supposed to do we
don't stop doing what we are supposed to
do in terms of adopting the asbaab but
when things don't go our way then this
hadith is very very important for us to
keep in mind and then the Prophet ﷺ
also mentioned that a person who has a
difficulty in his life there is a phrase
that he should also keep in mind قَدَّرَ
اللَّهُ وَمَا شَاءَ فَعَلَ Allah SWT he dictated
this to happen he wrote it to happen
and whatever he wants he does simple as
that and this is the easiest and best
way to get closure in one's life this
word closure it's a big thing in the
west amongst Muslims and non-Muslims but non
-Muslims use this a lot that when can
a person get closure after a tragedy or
after something difficult happens to them these things
that the Prophet ﷺ taught us these are
the best ways of getting closure the easiest
ways to get closure and to basically move
on with our lives and it is really
a blessing that Allah SWT has given us
these guidelines so that a person can really
move on from the difficulty that he has
been facing and the fact that a person
has been given a blessing of something which
is called forgetfulness Allah SWT refers to the
human being as Nasee one who forgets all
the time forgetfulness is actually a blessing a
blessing in disguise because consciously or subconsciously a
person tends to forget a difficulty that happened
to him in his life a tragedy that
happened to him in his life a person
tends to forget it and sometimes when he
is reminded of it he gets a little
bit of sadness but other than that this
blessing that Allah SWT has given us also
we should also thank Allah for this so
Allah says here the people who lose hope
and they are despondent they basically do not
have complete Iman and conviction in Allah SWT
so Iman necessitates that we should also not
lose hope in difficult times and in times
of tragedy so now the brothers go back
to Yusuf A.S and try to plead
their case and they use psychology Allah SWT
has described how they come to him when
they entered upon him and Aleyhi refers to
Yusuf A.S they said O noble person,
O respected person O almighty one so they
start the sentence off by glorifying Yusuf A
.S so glorifying and putting him on a
pedestal and showing him complete respect and this
is why they say the next sentence it
is for him to feel sorry for them
and basically they are humbling themselves so I
don't know if you've come across beggars in
Pakistan and India what do they say?
they start off by saying nice things to
you * Sahib or Sufi Sahib or different
kinds of words to kind of make you
feel good and then after that they will
start saying my kids are hungry I'm hungry
I haven't eaten for two days I haven't
eaten for three days so this is the
psychology that was used so they first of
all glorified the Aziz Yusuf A.S and
the next sentence they say harm has touched
us and our family meaning first of all
the poverty that we are going through we
don't have any food and the fact that
you've taken our brother away from us and
of course the other brother that left us
so we have faced all kinds of difficulty
in these past few days and we brought
you some goods that are to be given
Buzjat means Allah A.S. says Allah A
.S. He pushes pushes the clouds meaning when
they move from place to place and the
rainfall falls the word Yusji is used so
Buzjat refers to something that is pushed or
given so we brought some currency or we
brought you some goods so that you can
obviously return back grain and food that we
can take back so obviously the Mufassireen say
that when you are trying to trade something
for something else the thing that you trade
in is of less value for the thing
that you want to get back so for
the classic example in our time is the
issue of trading in a car you trade
in a car obviously it's an older car,
older model 3 years old, 4 years old
and you want to get a newer model
so the one that you want to get
rid of is the older one and it
is something that you are trying to sell
you have not been able to sell it
so because you haven't been able to sell
it you say okay I'll trade it in
you want to basically get rid of it
so whatever goods they brought they must have
been goods that really they wanted to get
rid of but they wanted to be replenished
for the grain that they were craving so
وَجِئْنَا بِبِضُعَةٍ مُزْجَعَةٍ فَأَوْفِلَنَا الْكَيْل وَتَصَدَّقْ عَلَيْنَا so
fulfill the measurement to us meaning give us
the full measure okay we brought these goods
for you of course the goods may be
not of good quality فَأَوْفِلَنَا الْكَيْل give us
the full measure of grain that we are
supposed to get وَتَصَدَّقْ عَلَيْنَا and be charitable
towards us indeed Allah SWT rewards the ones
that are charitable so the question is that
the word Sadaqah is used تَصَدَّقْ عَلَيْنَا and
the question is that the family of the
Prophet SAW were not allowed to take Sadaqah
so how is it that Yaqub AS family
is asking for Sadaqah so the answer to
that question is that the prohibition of Sadaqah
was only for the family of the Prophet
Muhammad SAW and the reason for that being
very briefly is that Sadaqah or Zakat is
basically the means through which the rest of
the wealth is purified so if you for
example you are washing dishes the water that
you use to wash the dishes can anybody
drink it?
it's going to be difficult for a person
to drink it but a person who needs
to drink it will drink it to survive
so similar it's just a very rough example
for you to understand that the Zakat is
kind of it has this impurity attached to
it even though it's clean to use, even
though it's pure to use for the ones
who are deserving of it and the recipients
of it but the Prophet SAW being who
he was and because of his status, him
and his family were not allowed to use
it but the word Sadaqah here is used
but this ruling for the prohibition of Sadaqah
and Zakat was for our Prophet Muhammad SAW
and not for the Sharia before that so
what does it mean here in this case,
it means that release our brother release our
brother, give our brother back to us, we
want to take him back and we want
to give him back to the father so
Yusuf SAW now at this point, he discloses
who he is and according to the Mufassireen
he starts smiling and that smile is something
that they recognize they kind of have a
doubt that this is Yusuf so then at
that point he says هل علمتم ما فعلتم
بيوسف و أخي إذ أنتم جاهلون do you
know what you did with Yusuf and his
brother when you were ignorant so just the
very statement is kind of absolving them of
guilt he is absolving them, he isn't pointing
his finger at them and saying you criminals
and you bad people, what did you do
to me he says إذ أنتم جاهلون when
you were unaware when you were ignorant you
did this, whatever you did you did it
out of ignorance subhanallah, this is a Kareem,
he was indeed Kareem Ibn Kareem Ibn Kareem
Yusuf SAW the prophet referred to him as
Kareem Ibn Kareem Ibn Kareem said the son
of he himself was Kareem Yusuf SAW a
prophet son of Yaqub SAW son of Ishaq
SAW son of Ibrahim SAW a line of
four prophets subhanallah so his Kareem his generosity
is coming out in the statement that he
is making to his brothers, so do you
know what you did with Yusuf and his
brother إذ أنتم جاهلون when you were unaware,
when you were ignorant قالوا أإنك لأنت يوسف
they said indeed are you Yusuf he said
و هذا أخي he said yes I am
Yusuf and this is my brother indeed Allah
SWT bestowed his favours upon us and again
a person who has been deprived of his
father, deprived of his family, went through so
many hardships, he is still counting the favours
of Allah SWT this is an amazing thing
and again he could have said you did
this to me and I became a slave
for so many years and I went through
so many hardships, I was imprisoned for 7
-8 years all because of what you did
to me, but instead قَدْ بَنَّ اللَّهُ عَلَيْنَا
indeed Allah SWT he bestowed his favours upon
us إِنَّهُ مَنْ يَتَّقِي وَيَصْبِحْ فَإِنَّ اللَّهَ لَا
يُضِيعُ أَجْرَ الْمُحْسِنِينَ Indeed the person who has
the Taqwa of Allah SWT and has Sabr,
فَإِنَّ اللَّهَ Allah SWT does not waste the
reward of those that do good InshaAllah we
will stop there and we will continue with
ayah number 91 next week InshaAllah I pray
that Allah SWT gives us Tawfiq to understand
and practice what has been said and heard