Website: www.aaiil.uk
Learning Lessons from
the life of Joseph (Yusuf, alaihi-s-salam) – 3
Friday
Khutba by Dr Zahid Aziz,
for Lahore
Ahmadiyya UK, 31 January 2025
|
“They (the ten brothers) said: By Allah! Allah has
indeed chosen you over us, and we were certainly sinners. He (Joseph) said:
There is no reproach against you this day. Allah may forgive you, and He is
the most Merciful of those who show mercy.” — ch. 12, Yūsuf, v. 91–92 |
قَالُوۡا
تَاللّٰہِ
لَقَدۡ
اٰثَرَکَ
اللّٰہُ
عَلَیۡنَا
وَ اِنۡ
کُنَّا
لَخٰطِئِیۡنَ
﴿۹۱﴾ قَالَ
لَا تَثۡرِیۡبَ
عَلَیۡکُمُ
الۡیَوۡمَ ؕ یَغۡفِرُ
اللّٰہُ
لَکُمۡ ۫ وَ
ہُوَ
اَرۡحَمُ
الرّٰحِمِیۡنَ
﴿۹۲﴾ |
|
“And he (Joseph) raised his parents on the throne,
and they fell prostrate for his sake. And he said: My father, this is the significance
of my earlier vision — my Lord has made it true. And He was indeed kind to
me, when He brought me forth from the prison, and brought you from the desert
after the devil had sown dissensions between me and my brothers. Surely my
Lord is Benignant to whom He pleases. Truly He is the Knowing, the Wise.” — ch. 12, Yūsuf, v. 100 |
وَ
رَفَعَ
اَبَوَیۡہِ
عَلَی
الۡعَرۡشِ
وَ خَرُّوۡا
لَہٗ
سُجَّدًا ۚ
وَ قَالَ یٰۤاَبَتِ
ہٰذَا
تَاۡوِیۡلُ
رُءۡیَایَ
مِنۡ قَبۡلُ
۫ قَدۡ
جَعَلَہَا
رَبِّیۡ
حَقًّا ؕ وَ
قَدۡ
اَحۡسَنَ بِیۡۤ
اِذۡ
اَخۡرَجَنِیۡ
مِنَ
السِّجۡنِ
وَ جَآءَ
بِکُمۡ
مِّنَ الۡبَدۡوِ
مِنۡۢ بَعۡدِ
اَنۡ
نَّزَغَ
الشَّیۡطٰنُ
بَیۡنِیۡ وَ
بَیۡنَ
اِخۡوَتِیۡ
ؕ اِنَّ
رَبِّیۡ
لَطِیۡفٌ
لِّمَا یَشَآءُ
ؕ اِنَّہٗ
ہُوَ
الۡعَلِیۡمُ
الۡحَکِیۡمُ
﴿۱۰۰﴾ |
I will complete the story of Joseph
in this khutba. The verses I have recited are from the end of the story.
It ends with his ten scheming and jealous brothers asking him for forgiveness,
and Joseph forgiving them. And lastly, he showed his parents his seat as
second-in-command to the Pharaoh of Egypt, and explained how his dream as a
youth was now fulfilled. Going back to where I reached in the last khutba,
Joseph had interpreted the dream of the king, that there will be seven good
years of harvest, followed by seven years of drought, and they should save some
of the harvest of the first seven years to use during the drought. The king then
placed Joseph in charge of the wealth and finances of the country.
You would have expected Joseph to
tell them angrily that he was the one they had abandoned in a well, and now he
was holding this high government position, second only to the king, and they were
reduced to purchasing food from him, which was not available anywhere else. At
the least, he would have refused to sell them the food, or he could have gone
further and had them punished. But he didn’t do this. What happened was this.
The brothers told the administering
officials the number of people in their family. Joseph said to them: You must
bring your brother if you want your full ration of corn. Joseph was concerned
about that brother Benjamin’s welfare at these brothers’ hands, and he also wanted
to see him after all these years. He assured them in these words:
“Do you not see that I give full measure and that I am the best of hosts?”
(12: 59).
Joseph also told his servants to put
the money, which they had paid, inside their bags when returning their bags to
them, but they didn’t know this. By saying “I am the best of hosts” he was
indicating that they will realise that he was treating them as his personal
guests. This shows that Joseph wasn’t giving them the corn free of charge at
the state’s expense, but he must have paid the state for it himself. He didn’t
return their money to them openly in their hands in order not to embarrass
them, so he had it quietly placed in their luggage. There is a moral lesson for
us in this, that when we do an act of favour to someone it should be done
without embarrassing them.
The brothers went back to their home country
and told their father Jacob that to get the full ration they need to take
Benjamin with them to Egypt. Naturally the father recalled the previous
experience of long ago when he had allowed them to take Joseph and they had abandoned
him. Now when they opened their bags and found that, apart from the corn, their
money was also returned to them in it, they were happy and this treatment
encouraged them to go back to get more corn. Jacob, worried about trusting them
to take Benjamin, made the ten brothers take an oath in Allah’s name that they
would bring Benjamin back with them.
When they reached Egypt, Joseph took
Benjamin to one side, revealed his identity only to him, and arranged his stay
with him, saying:
“I am your brother, so do not grieve at what they do” (12:69).
In other words, do not let the
injustice of your brothers worry you. Joseph wanted to keep Benjamin in Egypt,
but as the Quran says:
“He could not take his brother under the king’s law, unless Allah pleased”
(12:76).
This teaches us that even the highest
ministers in a government should obey the law. Joseph was in such a high
position of power that he could have ignored the law, or gone round it, to keep
Benjamin with him. But Allah then brought about circumstances which enabled
Joseph to keep him.
What happened was that when they were
departing, somehow a drinking-cup got placed inside Benjamin’s bag. Many
commentators of the Quran claim that this was done by Joseph, so that Benjamin
would be caught for theft and detained in Egypt and thus remain in the country.
But this interpretation cannot be accepted because such scheming is unworthy of
a prophet, particularly since Joseph had set so many great examples of adhering
to the truth. He was even addressed as the “truthful one” in an earlier part of
this story. Some say that it was one of the brothers who did this in order to
get Benjamin caught for theft and be punished. Some say that Joseph had this
cup placed, not to get Benjamin caught, but out of kindness as a gift. He did
this without Benjamin’s knowledge, just as he had returned the brothers’ money
in their luggage without telling them.
At the same time, it so happened that
a royal measuring cup went missing. Its guardians suspected the brothers and
searched all their bags, including Benjamin’s bag, and found it in there. This
shows another good point about their system of government. Noticing that a
government property was missing, even a cup, its guardian says to the brothers,
according to the Quran: “I am responsible for it” (12:72). So this was how
Benjamin was detained in Egypt.
The brothers were now desperate
because they had given their father an oath in Allah’s name that they would
bring Benjamin back. They pleaded with the Egyptian officials that their old
father would be very distressed at losing Benjamin and offered that they could
detain one of them instead of Benjamin. This offer was rejected and they were
told:
“Allah forbid that we should seize other than the person with whom we
found our property, for then surely we should be unjust!” (12:79).
This is another principle of law and
justice, that only the person against whom there is evidence can be detained;
an innocent person cannot take his place and bear his punishment.
The ten brothers returned home to
their father Jacob and explained why they didn’t bring Benjamin back with them.
They said to him: Ask anyone who was there, they will tell you that he
committed theft. But Jacob simply repeated to them what he had said to them
many years ago when they returned without Joseph:
“Indeed, your souls have made it a light matter for you. So patience is
best (for me)” (12:18, 83).
He also said to them:
“I complain of my grief and sorrow only to Allah, and I know from Allah
what you do not know” (12:86).
The brothers are now squealing that
losing Benjamin is not their fault, and of course they are right this time. But
how can anyone believe them because previously they deliberately abandoned
Joseph and presented a false excuse of how it wasn’t their fault? This teaches
us that when someone does a wrong deed and gets away with it with a false
excuse, a time will come when they will be falsely implicated in a similar
wrong deed, and no one will listen to their justified excuse because of their
past record.
Anyhow, the father told the sons to
go back to Egypt and enquire about both Joseph and Benjamin, as he knew from
Allah that they would be found. So they went back and pleaded before Joseph
that they and their family are in distress and have little money and want the
corn as charity (12:88). It was now that Joseph told them who he was. The Quran
relates:
“He said: Do you know how you treated Joseph and his brother, when you
were ignorant? They said: Are you really Joseph? He said: I am Joseph and this
is my brother; Allah has indeed been gracious to us. Surely he who keeps his
duty and is patient — Allah never wastes the reward of the doers of good. They
said: By Allah! Allah has indeed chosen you over us, and we were certainly
sinners. He said: There is no reproach against you this day. Allah may forgive
you, and He is the most Merciful of those who show mercy” (12:89–92).
Joseph forgave his brothers when they
admitted their wrongdoing and realised they had been wrong. They only made this
admission because of the painful process they had to go through of losing
Benjamin through no fault of their own and then their explanation not being believed
by their father. If Joseph had told them who he was the first time they came to
him in Egypt, and forgiven them, their repentance would not have been genuine
or heart-felt. The whole episode also enabled Joseph to set an example to them
of doing justice, being honest and scrupulous, and charitable and generous,
even to those who harm you. Joseph’s parents were also brought over to Egypt
and they marvelled over his high status and thanked Allah for it.
Immediately after this relating Joseph’s story, the Quran says to the Holy Prophet:
“This is from the news relating to
the unseen (which) We reveal to you” (12:102).
First of all, the moral and inspiring
aspects of this story in the Quran are unseen matters which were not at all in
the Bible but revealed to the Holy Prophet. Secondly, the “news relating to the
unseen” are that this chapter, which was revealed when the Holy Prophet was
still at Makkah under persecution, gave the news of the unseen future that the
story of Joseph would be repeated in the life of the Holy Prophet Muhammad. He
too, like Joseph, rose from a helpless state to become the ruler, and he too
came to hold his opponents and persecutors in his power, who were helpless
before him. He forgave them by declaring:
“I say as my brother Joseph said:
‘There is no blame against you this day’.”
So may Allah enable us to learn
practical lessons from the lives and experiences of the prophets as related in
the Quran, instead of merely treating them as stories of the past with
fascination and wonder — ameen.
Website:
www.aaiil.uk