Focus on the Why, Not the How | From Trial to Triumph Ep. 12

From Trial to Triumph — Episode 12: Focus on the Why, Not the How

Today is October 5th, so it's the day that my brother passed away 5 years ago. So we're actually just at the Maqbara, and it took longer to get out, so I apologize for that. We stopped at the discussion where the wife of the Aziz — and I try to avoid saying her name was Zulaykha because it was possible that her name wasn't Zulaykha, and it's also possible that if someone's name is Zulaykha they get attached to this negative connotation, which is unfair. Because there's a possibility it was, there's a possibility it wasn't.

There's a reason why Allah doesn't necessarily mention ages and specific names in the Qur'an, because they don't really add to the lessons of the story. They're a detail that you need to build character within the people of the Qur'an. But the characters of the Qur'an are less important than the lessons that you derive from those stories.

So people always ask, how old was Yusuf when this happened? Or what were the brothers' names that did this to him? It wouldn't add any level of, any form of lessons to derive from. It would add character, it would probably add something to attach yourself with, but it would become the focus point — whereas the actual focus is supposed to be the lessons that come from it.

The Wife of the Aziz Confesses Before Her Friends

So she brings her friends and they pretty much huddle upon Yusuf alayhi salam. And the wife then turns back to all these women that were mocking her, and they were spreading this gossip around town about her. She says:

"This is what you all were blaming me about. You all were commenting, making fun of me, but you've sat in the room and you've only experienced a moment with Yusuf, and this is your reaction. And I've lived with him for all these years. This is what you blame me about."

A Sinner Always Finds a Bigger Sinner to Pacify Their Guilt

A sinner, if they want, will always find someone who's a bigger sinner than them. That is not something which is difficult to find. This is what the Prophet ﷺ would say:

(Sunan al-Tirmidhi, Hadith 2512)

That there are two qualities that if a person is able to internalize, they will always be recognized as a complete believer — complete believer because a believer must have sabr and shukr: صَابِرًا وَشَاكِرًا. But in simplified terms, this is the state of a complete believer — at times sabr, at times shukr.

The individual who looks upon those who are above them in their religion, and they hope to become like them — they look up to them. And they look at people in their dunya that are lower than them, and they are grateful to Allah for whatever they were given. And this is not only wealth; it could be health, it could be family, it could be career choice, whatever it is.

So she's finding — like you can always find someone to pacify your lack of guilt. You can always find people who say, well, I'm doing this, but look at what those people are doing. This would perhaps be meritorious if this individual was seeking to help them. But to use it as a source of motivation to continue doing what you're doing is demonic. This is from Shaytan. This is a Shaytani whisper — "that's okay man, look at what those people are doing."

Yusuf's Response: Prison Is More Beloved to Me

So she says to them:p>

"I tried really hard to pull him towards me against his will. But he protected himself, he sought protection. And if he does not do what I command him, he will surely be imprisoned and will be amongst those who are disgraced."

Now, with all the support that they have — and I spoke about this two weeks ago in our last session — when people are unable to create the environment to lead you towards a sin or haram, they will use external supplementary methods to convince you. So for example, she was unable to convince him, so she brought all these people. Now the entire environment is supporting it.

You don't ask a person to give charity for the first time randomly. You ask them to give after bringing them to a fundraiser where everyone is giving — so it gives them motivation. Similarly, if you take a good person — a person hopefully like ourselves, hopefully we have goodness in us, may Allah increase it — it will be difficult to ask someone to open up a bottle of alcohol and drink. Very difficult. Very difficult to ask someone to do something in a masjid. This is why these spaces have a natural level of deterrence. You're protected because of the environment itself.

But if you take that person out of that environment and put them into an environment where certain frivolous activities are more accepted, it's very difficult to protect yourself then. So she builds an environment where now it's extremely difficult to avoid it. Extremely difficult — not impossible. Because Allah will never make our nature such that we cannot avoid sin. That would be a flaw in our creation. Allah is not flawed in any aspect:

He has given us the ability to, in any situation, pull away from it. But it requires the four things that we spoke about a few sessions ago.

So she goes — if he doesn't listen to what we want now, forget it. This person is going to be in prison for sure. And we're going to make sure that he is embarrassed, he is belittled, he is disgraced. Meaning we're going to make sure that we have an entire propaganda machine against him. Because he didn't do what we wanted him to do. So we will use all of our resources, all of our power, all of our ability to create this campaign that will embarrass and disgrace this man — Yusuf alayhi salam.

So Yusuf alayhi salam, at this point, he can't just avoid it. So he says:

"Oh Allah, at this point, prison is more beloved to me than that which they're inviting me to. And if you don't turn me away from their plots and plans, I will fall into it, and I'll be amongst those who are the ignorant ones."

Dear friends, at times being free and liberated is less important if it goes against your principles. How many people do we have who are in prisons simply because they say رَبِّيَ اللَّهُ — they claim Allah is their Lord — and they stand for something that actually matters. It's okay. There are many people who are free but their minds are shackled and their hearts are shackled. And there are many people who are in prison but their minds are liberated — they're free.

So he says, I'd rather be imprisoned and be away from this environment that continuously pulls me towards haram, than to be free but fall into this situation. And each of us have these opportunities — or these challenges — quite often. Like, I can stay in this environment and fall into these situations, or I can remove myself from it and naturally lose out in certain aspects of dunya.

Dunya and Akhirah: The Balance

The Prophet ﷺ says:

(Musnad Ahmad, Hadith 17638)

This like euphoric understanding of:

Of course Allah gives 'afiyah. But this idea that "Allah give me hasana in dunya, give me hasana in akhira" means that my dunya and akhira will always be the same — i.e., if my akhira is great, my dunya can also be great. It's true. Allah can give 'afiyah to whomever He wishes. But hasana in that ayah doesn't mean it will be qualified and quantified the same way as akhira. But if it was, that means our akhira is actually quite limited. Because:

Whatever is in dunya is less. So if I want hasana of dunya to be like hasana of akhira, we've already made the wrong dua. Because hasana of akhira — even one aspect of it — is greater than the hasana of all of its entirety in dunya.

Whoever is overly infatuated with their akhira, there will be limited harm that comes to their dunya — not harm as in they will be physically, mentally, or emotionally harmed by it, but they will have to lose out on certain aspects. And we do. When we go for Jumu'ah, Allah says:

Leave your business at that moment. Pretty much one hour of that day, I have to leave. People say, "Man, I have to leave work, I lose out on one hour of work, I could have done this." This is what a munafiq will teach us to say. "I could have done this in that time." But you could never and I could never have received what I get from that Jumu'ah in any time that I would have given to my dunya.

I pray five times a day and those five times a day I could have done this too. If I wasn't fasting I could have done this. Using deen as if it is a burden added to my life is a way for a person to feel that this is not something that is natural. No, deen is natural. Obedience of Allah is natural:

It's only unnatural when the heart is not attached to Allah. When people are attached to Allah, obedience is a natural reaction — because that's the default. Ita'ah is the default.

Whoever overly loves their akhira may have some loss in their dunya. And if I overly love my dunya, there may be some harm in my akhira. A person can say that if I leave this business I'll be making a lot of money but I won't be making as much. Well, that's hasana in dunya. Majority of the mufassirun comment on the word hasana in dunya to be family, to be health — not necessarily wealth in itself. They refer to it to be rizq of any aspect.

So he makes that decision: if this is what I have to deal with, this is the environment that I have to live in, then prison is more beloved to me. I'd rather just go to prison.

Ask Allah for Ease, Not Difficulty

Even though he is soon to be a prophet, if he allows himself to become desensitized in this environment, then falling into that crime is a natural reaction. A person who trusts themselves too much will sooner or later know why they shouldn't have.

He could have said, "Oh Allah, give me the power to be able to handle this too — I can manage." He could have said, "Oh Allah, at this point, it's better if you take me out of this environment." But the Prophet ﷺ says in a beautiful narration: "May Allah have mercy upon Yusuf." This was his way of highlighting the story and also extracting lessons for his companions and for all of us. رَحِمَ اللَّهُ يُوسُفَ is a way of just showing your love for Yusuf alayhi salam, but also highlighting a specific lesson.

He says: if Yusuf had not asked Allah for prison, Allah would have given him another way out of this situation. But he asked Allah for what? Prison. He said, "Oh Allah, give me prison — it's more beloved to me than that which they call me towards." But if he had just said, "Oh Allah, remove me from this the way you think is better for me," then Allah would perhaps have given him a different way out.

This is what the Prophet ﷺ taught us:

(Sunan al-Tirmidhi, Hadith 3558)

Ask Allah for ease. Ask Allah for ease. Don't ask Allah for the difficulty, because maybe by me asking for it is the reason why Allah puts me there.

The Prophet ﷺ walked by a companion who was asking Allah for patience. He said, "Oh brother, what are you going through?" He said, "I'm not really going through anything right now, but I'm trying to gather up that patience when I do need it so I can use it." The Prophet ﷺ said, "No, no, no — ask Allah for ease." Your ease and my ease is enough for Allah to give me my akhirah. I don't need difficulty in order for Allah to give me Jannah. Because that difficulty that I'm experiencing may be that ease. Good health is difficult — a person that can't see never has to worry about responding to Allah about the questions of the eyes. Good health is challenging. Now I have to respond to Allah about what I look at, about what I listen to. Where there's autonomy, there's liability. So he says, you should have asked Allah for ease. Don't ask Allah for sabr.

Focus on the Who and the Why, Not the How

This is why we're taught in our beautiful tradition: we are not necessarily responsible to ask Allah for the how. We are focused to know the who and the why.

Who is with me?

Allah is with me. And we are also responsible for the why — why am I committed to this? That's called niyyah. Your why has to be clear. Without clarity, there's no commitment. Without commitment, there's no conviction in what you're doing. There needs to be clarity, commitment, and conviction:

• Clarity is your niyyah.
• Commitment is istiqamah.
• Conviction is yaqeen.

All of these are necessary for a person to continue living as a believer — or anything in life, actually. The why was clear to the People of the Cave. They didn't have a how. Allah gave them the how. Allah gives you the how.

A lot of times parents or even youngsters will ask: how am I going to be able to manage, earn halal, do this, live in America, buy a house, buy a car, get married with halal money? The how is not really our responsibility. We don't confine Allah's qudra based upon our limited, confined ways of thinking. Allah will figure it out. Allah will open up the doors. Not saying that we don't make an effort — we make an effort. But our effort is not the how. The effort is our part of understanding: Allah is with me, the why is clear, and the rest Allah will take care of:

Allah Answers His Du'a

So he says: if he did not ask for prison, Allah would have given him a different way out. Allah would have found him a different way. So Allah says:

Allah responded to his du'a and answered it, and He turned away their plots that were being planned against him. In other words, their plot and plan was very clear — that they wanted to make sure that he falls into this sin. And if he falls into it once, that means now he's going to fall into it again and again and they can use it against him. No — Allah turned the entire plot away. But he had to go to prison. Allah is the All-Hearing, the All-Knowing. Allah knows the reality.

So sometimes, in order to preserve my dignity and honor, my dunya will be harmed. That's why the Prophet ﷺ would talk about avoiding places of doubt.

The Story of Imam al-Bukhari

There is a story narrated about Imam al-Bukhari. He was traveling on a boat and he was a wealthy person — Allah had given him wealth through his father and through his own business. So he had a pouch, like a bag of gold coins. Someone came to him and asked, "What's in your bag?" And he was naive in that moment. He said, "In this bag there are gold coins — about this much, I have this much money on me." He said, "That's cool." A few moments later, that same person went ahead to the captain — the police of the ship — and said, "Hey, that guy over there stole my gold. It's in that bag and I'll tell you how much it is." And he told him the amount, because he knew now. The security of the ship started going to Imam al-Bukhari, and he caught wind of this.

So he took that bag and threw it into the ocean. Threw it out. It was filled with his money. He threw it away — protecting myself is more important than this right now. They come to him, there's no bag on him. They get upset at the accuser. After the security left, the accuser comes to Imam al-Bukhari and says, "You and I both know that I was lying. And you and I both know that you had a bag. So where is your bag? I understand I messed up, but where did you hide it?"

Imam al-Bukhari said, "Brother, my bag is in there — it's in the ocean." He said, "Why would you throw your bag in the ocean? It's yours, it belongs to you." He said, "I threw my bag away because in the field that I'm in, being accused of lying is almost the same as lying." He's a muhaddith, right? The muhaddithin — scholars of hadith — if they get accused of lying, then their sanad or their narration falls under scrutiny. And he's Imam al-Bukhari — he knows what the purpose of his life is. His purpose is to preserve hadith. He won't be able to fulfill that in its entirety if there is a claim of a lie against him. So he just gets rid of the gold.

Yusuf Enters Prison — With Two Companions

Then later on, Allah made him go into prison for some time. And now — how did he go into prison? Who did he go into prison with? This is how Allah begins the next few verses:

After this entire situation takes place, they actually make a case against him. Regardless of how broken your system is and how much it supports the hierarchy, you still need to go through a system — even though it's a flawed system. What they put against him was that he stole. In some narrations it is mentioned that he stole from the Aziz; in others it mentions that he attempted to poison the Aziz. So they made this plot against him. Of course, they gathered and planted their evidence against him.

So he enters into prison with two youngsters — فَتَيَانِ. You know, any detail mentioned in the Qur'an is important. What does Allah mention? It could have been just: he entered into prison. That's it. No — he entered into prison with two other youngsters. And I find this very interesting because even in America, when you have criminal cases, quite often people are tried together. Though they're independent cases, they have similar crimes or similar outlooks. So they trial them together — though all are independent cases. If one is a criminal, it doesn't mean the other one is a criminal. But the benefit of doing so is that in the jury's mind, they're treating them almost the same. They don't do this in murder cases but they would do this in a lot of white-collar crime.

So now when this happens — if this person is guilty, that means this person is also guilty. So they brought him in this case with two other youngsters who were correctly being charged for a crime. It was like, "Oh, they're all three young people" — and it's natural that if those two are being charged for a crime, that means this one is also being charged for a crime. They're together. So it was their way of getting Yusuf into prison.

Because they're young, they're all being accused of something similar — stealing or poisoning. The poisoning charge is what was used against Yusuf, and these other two guys also got accused of it. The Aziz is the number two to the king. So it almost seemed like this was one big conspiracy against the leadership — that these three guys tried to poison the Aziz and the king. It was planted like a conspiracy that these people are against the leadership. Makes sense?

A Historical Note: The King Was Not Egyptian

The king is not Egyptian. And we'll come back to this next week. The king is actually Shami. The orientalists made a claim to attack the validity of the Qur'an. One of the things they attacked was historical narrations — that if the Qur'an was accurate, this narration would have been accurate. But they said it's not accurate because the king of Egypt was always known as a Pharaoh. So why is it that in Surah Yusuf, Allah calls the king a malik?

It was one of the claims they made — that historically the Qur'an is inaccurate, and therefore it's not completely reliable. May Allah protect us from that.

But when you historically look at why Allah called him a malik: in approximately a 90-year span, the ruling power of northern Egypt was not actually the Egyptians. They were Shamis — meaning Syria, Lebanon, and Palestine. They were from this part of the world, and they were the first people to invent the technique of fighting with war chariots. They were able to push out the Egyptians from this area and took power over it.

As homework, try to find out what this ruling power's tribe was called and come back next week and tell me. It's known. If you look for it, you'll find it. If you don't find it, you'll come back next week and I'll tell you what it is insha'Allah.

I started reading a lot of Egyptian history books over the last year and a half or two years — I've told this story of Yusuf maybe 35 or 40 times — and a lot of things are really interesting because you don't necessarily find them in tafsir. The point I was making is that the people now ruling are outsiders. And it all kind of makes sense why when the Egyptians came back, they treated these people like peasants. The Egyptians eventually took power back, and now the Shamis — the family of Ya'qub, the new Israel — are kind of treated as the invaders. "You dare take over our land again?" That's pretty much the history of what happened.

So the Shami king is running Egypt, but his cabinet members — the majority of them are still from the previous administration, still some Egyptians who stuck around. But you know who is still Egyptian? The people who cook the food. You can't change the entire system overnight. If that was the case, a lot of countries would be very different — it takes time.

So people were actually trying to kill this king. They were trying to kill him because he was an outsider, an invader. People in the back end were plotting against him. So when the food taster or the wine taster tasted the food before the king, that person fell unconscious and died. Now they didn't know — was it the bread that killed the person, or was it the wine? So they sent both of them to prison until it became clear. This is what's happening from behind the scenes of this ayah.

The Two Dreams — And Yusuf's Character in Prison

They asked for interpretation. Yusuf alayhi salam, after giving them a da'wah workshop that we'll talk about next week — probably one of my favorite parts of the surah — but what he did after being asked this question is remarkable. A highlight here is also their recognition of what a good man he was.

One of them said, "I saw myself squeezing grapes for wine." The other said, "I saw myself carrying bread upon my head, and birds were eating from it." They said, "Inform us of the interpretation of this. We see that you are verily amongst those who are al-muhsineen — those who are excelling, who are kind, who go above and beyond for the other person."

Now — the second dream. The first dream was Yusuf's own dream, seeing the eleven stars, the sun and the moon. The second dream begins here, in prison. These two people were accused of poisoning the king. Kings would normally have wine tasters and food tasters — before the food reaches the king's mouth, someone else tastes it because of the fear of being poisoned. Historically, this was very normal.

They asked for interpretation and what's remarkable is this: often times, when a person is hurting and struggling, their ability to present themselves in a manner that people would want to ask them for help is very difficult. "I'm already going through so much myself — why would I present myself in a way that I can help people?" And this was unique about the Prophet ﷺ as well — hurt people hurt people, when they're not healed by Allah. Because a person healed by Allah doesn't hurt people — they're able to help because they've gone through the same thing themselves.

Why was the Prophet ﷺ the best counselor? Because he's gone through so much pain himself. And he's able to connect with people at a level that no one else can connect to. He cares. He's grieving, yet he's smiling. His smile is not because he wants something from you — his smile is because he wants to give you something.

Often times — I speak about this often — you find people who calculate their handshakes, how they meet people. People's charisma and personality only kicks in when they need something from you. Why are you only meeting the person the right way when you need something from them? Why not present yourself correctly so that if they need something, they can come to you and ask?

إِنَّا نَرَاكَ مِنَ الْمُحْسِنِينَ — He never said who he was. They just said: you look like a person who will go out of their way for us. You look like someone who wants to help us. Even though we don't know you, just by the way you are.

And by this moment — if you just look at his story — why in the world would he look like a muhsin? He's been betrayed by his brothers, he lived in a well for all those days and was nearly killed there, then he was taken out and sold as a slave, and then he was thrown into prison. Brother — why would this person look like a muhsin?

Our responses are not supposed to be built upon our situations. The response of a believer is built on principles:

It's not based on how I'm doing. It's based on the fact that this is the basic requirement for me as a believer. May Allah make us amongst such a people, insha'Allah.

We'll go ahead and break for Asr, then we'll start our class. JazakAllah khair everyone. Assalamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh.