Surah Yusuf: The Five Highs and Lows | Divine Reminders with Mufti Abdul Wahab Waheed

Surah Yusuf: The Five Highs and Lows

InshAllah everyone is doing well and everyone enjoyed the recitation by Hafez Nour and Hafez Idrees. Every day at 2pm they are completing the entire Qur'an so I encourage everyone to continue joining and benefiting from their recitation. So today we completed three surahs: Surah Yusuf, Surah Ar-Ra'd, and Surah Ibrahim.

As I mentioned yesterday, inshAllah we'll try to touch lightly on Surah Yusuf for a bit because everyone wants to hear about Ahsan al-Qasas — the most beautiful surah. InshAllah I'm sure Sheikh Abdullah and Mufti al-Rahman will also dive into this surah in their evening 9:30pm session when they're speaking about a chapter of the Qur'an or a juz of the Qur'an. I will just shed some light on it where I feel like it may be beneficial for us to understand and then hopefully summarize it within 10 minutes, and the rest inshAllah you can get tonight.

Background: When Was This Surah Revealed?

First of all, this surah was revealed at the lowest point of the Prophet's ﷺ life. And that lowest point is known as Aam al-Huzn — the Year of Grief — following the death of his blessed and beloved wife Khadija (radiyaAllahu anha) and Abu Talib. And then right after that, the Prophet ﷺ went out to get some help from the neighboring city of Ta'if and he was pelted away by children.

And when Aisha (radiyaAllahu anha) asked the Prophet ﷺ, "What was the most difficult day of your life?" He responded by saying, "The day of Ta'if. The day of Ta'if was the most difficult day of my life." So you can imagine the level of hardship that he is going through. One thing, then a second thing, then a third thing.

That is why Allah says:

"You will continue to go through hardships one after the next until you actually meet Me." And that is the journey of life.

So to rekindle the Prophet's ﷺ lamp of iman at a high level, and to re-encourage him and re-motivate him, Allah gave him this blessed surah in the form of the story of Yusuf ﷺ. Allah gave him three things: He gave him the iman of the jinn. He gave him the journey of Mi'raj. And He also gave him the story of Yusuf. That is a quick background.

Ten Points: Five Struggles and Five Victories

Now in Surah Yusuf, we will talk about ten quick points. InshAllah, hopefully this can summarize a good portion of it. In this surah, we have five low points in the struggle of Yusuf ﷺ. And then we also have five high points and five victories for Yusuf ﷺ.

So it's as if when we open up this surah and we read it with reflection and tadabbur, we're able to realize that the struggles and the victories — they matched up. But yes, of course, the struggles all came first. All of the struggles were piled up upon each other. It wasn't that one struggle came and then immediately one victory came. Then one struggle, then one victory. Rather, there were five struggles — five difficult struggles and hardships — that if we had to go through even one of them, it would break our back. And this child, this individual, Yusuf ﷺ, had to go through five of them.

The Five Struggles

Struggle One: Betrayed by His Brothers and Thrown into a Well

The first is his brothers betraying him and throwing him into a well. They were talking about killing him until one of the brothers, Yahuda, said, "No, do not kill him. If you were to do anything —"

"Throw him into a well — a traveler will pick him up, if you really want to do something, do this."

For those that understand the Arabic language — غَيَابَةِ الْجُبِّ doesn't just mean that it was a well. Rather, الجُبّ refers to an unmade well — just a big hole. And غَيَابَةِ الْجُبِّ refers to the fact that the lower you go, the darker it gets, so you can't see what's going on beneath. And it was in the outskirts — some say it was 78 miles or 78 kilometers away from the city.

The reason why they threw him far out from the city is so that no one from the city could grab him. And if someone from the city were to grab him, they would recognize who he is. So they tried hard to hide this child by going far out from the city and throwing him into a well that wasn't really even a well — just a hole, an uncooked, unmade well with no bricks on it, just a big hole. In that hole, there would be water at times, and sometimes there would be no water there. Because it was so far out from the city, people would not use it as much. It was used by travelers.

And of course, they lied to their father and said a wolf ate this child. I wish we had time to go into some of the details of what they did and how they did this — where Ya'qub's ﷺ house was at the bottom of the hill, so they climbed up this hill with Yusuf on their back. And as they climbed up this hill, when the sight of Ya'qub ﷺ ended — because the hill had declined — they took this child from their shoulders and threw him on the floor. And they started to kick him.

And when he said, "Please help me — why are you...?" this child was so confused. "Why are you hitting me? Why did you just turn against me?" And each brother that he would go to, the brothers would say, "Don't ask us for help — ask the sun and the stars and the moon. You saw them in your dream, ask them for help." And they continued kicking him and forced him to walk. Imam Qurtubi explains that they actually almost broke his back — with such viciousness did they hit this child. And finally they get to this well and they throw him inside.

It is interesting that Allah doesn't say they forced him inside or describe those details, because the Qur'an is not a vulgar book. Rather, Allah says:

"When they decided to put him into the well..." and then Allah continued the story. The Mufassirun say this is because these brothers were forgiven — and some narrations even say that they also became prophets, though that is a weaker narration. But they were all forgiven. Since they were forgiven, Allah does not expose their mistake and their evil.

Struggle Two: Separation from His Dear Brother Binyamin

The second challenge is a separation from his dear brother Binyamin (Ibn Yameen) — his blood brother from the same mother and father. And in the first challenge, there is also the separation from his father.

Struggle Three: Sold as a Slave

The third challenge is that yes, he is taken out from the well, but now he is sold as a slave. He's taken out of this well and sold as a slave for a few pennies and a few dimes. Why was he sold for so cheap? They say since he was in the well for so many days, his face and complexion had changed, so they were unable to see how beautiful this child was. And secondly, they were scared because they knew he wasn't a real slave, so they wanted to sell him as fast as possible. Having a slave at that time was a true commodity and you could make money off it, so they sold him quickly before they got caught.

Struggle Four: Seduced by Zulaikha and Sent to Prison

The fourth challenge — the fourth hardship this youngster had to go through — was the challenge of finally finding a home, and after finding a home, after being seduced by Zulaikha, being sent off to prison. Where he says:

"O Allah, the prison is more beloved to me than the sins that these individuals are calling me towards." That is the fourth challenge.

Struggle Five: Forgotten in Prison for Seven More Years

The fifth challenge — the fifth hardship he had to deal with — was when he told his companion who was in prison with him to make sure to remind the king about him:

Shaytan made him forget, and Yusuf ﷺ continues to stay in prison for seven more years. That is the fifth challenge.

The Five Victories

Now let's talk about the five victories. Sometimes we think that after one difficulty, there should be ease in our life. But Yusuf ﷺ went through the first, the second, the third, the fourth, the fifth — and then finally the victories came. Allah says:

Victory One: Released from Prison with His Name Cleared

The first victory is that he is removed from prison and his name is cleared — because he refused to get out of prison until his name was cleared. Once his name was cleared — that he did not do anything to Zulaikha or any of the women that accused him — he said, "Once my name is cleared, then I'll come out." And his name was completely cleared where Zulaikha and the women said:

"Now the truth has come out. I am the culprit and he is the innocent person. He was the one protecting himself from me." That is the first victory.

Victory Two: Made Treasurer and Minister of Egypt

The second victory:

He is made one of the main ministers of Misr — Egypt — where he is the treasurer of all the wealth that comes in and goes out of the country. From the dungeon of a prison to the peak of being a king and treasurer, he is given a high rank. And this happened because he was able to connect himself to Allah in this isolated moment inside of that prison.

Victory Three: Reunited with His Brother Binyamin

The third victory is where he is finally reunited with his brother. He planted a cup inside of his brother's bag and when they were leaving:

"There is someone amongst you who is stealing something." And this was a victory for him because he was finally reunited with his brother. Before this happened, he had said to Binyamin:

While they were coming to get their provisions, he whispered to Binyamin without anyone hearing: "I'm going to do something and you'll be with me. Don't be sad. Don't be hopeless. I'm Yusuf. I'm your brother. I'm still alive." And I know some people talk about the struggle of Yusuf being away from Binyamin — but how about the struggle of Binyamin being separated from his brother? They were very close in age and very close in general — they were the only two brothers from the same mother. So he is reunited with Binyamin. That is the third victory.

Victory Four: Forgiveness and Reconciliation with His Brothers

The fourth victory — and this is also a great victory that the Prophet ﷺ himself speaks about — is that finally, after all of this time and all of this back and forth, he and his brothers come to an agreement where he forgives his brothers and love is brought back within them. Allah puts the love of each other back in their hearts, where he says:

"Don't worry about it. Allah has forgiven you and I have nothing in my heart." And these were the same words that the Prophet ﷺ echoed when he walked into Fath Makkah — when some of the Sahabah were hoping to get some revenge — and the Prophet ﷺ said: لَا تَثْرِيبَ عَلَيْكُمُ الْيَوْمَ يَغْفِرُ اللَّهُ لَكُمْ — "There is no one that's going to be harmed today, no revenge that's going to happen today. Everyone will be forgiven."

Victory Five: Reunited with His Father Ya'qub — The Greatest Victory

And lastly, the last and greatest victory out of them all: he is reunited with his parents — his father Ya'qub ﷺ, who had gone 40 years without seeing his son. He cried for 40 years but he never complained to anyone but Allah. And that is the definition of Sabrun Jameel.

Sabrun Jameel means لَا شَكْوَى لِأَحَدٍ إِلَّا اللَّهُ — that I will not complain to anyone but Allah:

"I will only turn towards Allah."

In the narration of Ibn Kathir, it has been mentioned that he cried for 40 years in Sajdah. Each night he would cry in Sajdah. And after 40 years, one night he had this conversation with Allah where he said:

"Will You not have mercy on my weakness? Will You not have mercy on my poverty? Will You not have mercy on my old age?" And Allah sent down Jibreel ﷺ to tell him that a victory was soon to come. And Allah responded:

(Ibn Kathir, Tafsir al-Qur'an al-'Azim, narration regarding Surah Yusuf)

"Oh Ya'qub, if Yusuf had passed away, after that du'a I would have brought him back to life" — such was the beauty of the du'a that he made asking for Yusuf to be returned.

And the Mufassirun say that the very next day, the news of Yusuf's ﷺ shirt came — his shirt was wiped over his father's face, his eyesight was restored, and then the entire family traveled to Misr. They were welcomed with a welcoming party for the ages: 70,000 of the army men of Misr came out 40 miles into the outskirts of Misr to welcome the father of their king, Yusuf ﷺ. And Yusuf ﷺ descended from his camel or his horse, went up to his father, took his crown off — or the helmet he was wearing — put it on his father's head, and kissed him on the forehead.

I wish we could flip through the pages of history and see this scene unfold — where the son is finally reunited with the father after such a long period of time — 40 years of being away from each other and finally being brought back together. We can just imagine the emotions that both the father and the son are experiencing. But for Sabrun Jameel: no complaints except to Allah.

You know, we have Istiqbal — a welcoming. The welcoming that we get when we go back home, in our Arab countries, or when we come back from Hajj and our whole family comes to pick us up from the airport. Imagine half the kingdom of Misr coming to welcome you in. This was the fifth and final victory.

Conclusion

So the five losses and the five victories — may Allah make us amongst those who understand that sometimes a struggle comes upon a struggle. But when the ease comes, the ease also comes in flurries, as do the struggles. May Allah bless us with aafiyah. O Allah, we ask for ease in this world and we ask that You protect us from any hardship and struggle. May Allah give us the understanding of the beautiful stories that are in the Qur'an — not just limited to Yusuf ﷺ, but all the stories — and allow us to take benefit from them.

This is a ten-minute recap. We can only cover so much and I tried my best to cover the entire surah through these five struggles and five victories. I hope inshAllah you were able to benefit from them. JazakAllah khair. May Allah bless you all.

Once again, we appreciate you coming online and I hope you continue to do so until we finish the Qur'an. InshAllah we'll see you all at 9:30 when Sheikh Abdullah and Mufti al-Rahman do their daily Qur'an reflections, and hopefully you will benefit from that as well. JazakAllah khair everyone. May Allah bless you all.

Assalamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh.