Inseparable Love | Amazed by Surah Yusuf w/ Mufti Abdul Wahab Waheed

Inseparable Love — Reflections on Surah Yusuf

Surah Yusuf is a journey of many highs and lows, and that is something which is very prominent in the surah. There are many highs and there are many lows. The lows come first and the highs come next, which is a sign that before any type of ease and comfort, there is difficulty.

The difficulty comes first and then the ease comes. So all the lows come first and then the highs come.

Yusuf's Dream: Keeping the Family Together

One of the incidents that really touches me, amongst many of them, is where Yusuf عليه السلام understands his father's grief. And when he understands his father's grief and his sadness, he is in pain himself. He tells his brothers — Yusuf's عليه السلام entire journey, though his brothers were the ones that betrayed him and attempted to destroy him — he wanted the family to stay together. That was always his dream.

His dream was: how can my family be together? This is very important for us youngsters — at times when we grow older and we stand on our own feet and we are able to move around, we often just want to be alone. We want to be able to enjoy our own success on our own. There is no virtue in simply being successful and happy on our own.

Success and happiness is truly fulfilling when we are able to do it with our loved ones and with our community. And that was Yusuf's عليه السلام goal — to bring his family together. So when his father had experienced the traumatic experiences of losing Yusuf and then Ibn Yamin, Yusuf عليه السلام told his brothers: take this shirt of mine and put it on my father's face. And when you do that, his eyesight will return.

The Father Who Could Smell His Son's Fragrance

Allah tells us — when the caravan came close:

When the caravan started coming close, the father had such a deep love for Yusuf. He says:

"I can sense the fragrance and the scent of Yusuf عليه السلام. I can smell it."

They said to him, "Oh old man —"

"You are lost in this extremely old hope of yours — that one day they will come back and he will come back. This is a misguidance of yours. Stop thinking about it."

Never Losing Hope in Allah

But when a person has hope in Allah, there is no one that can take that hope away. And that is what Ya'qub عليه السلام taught us all. There is never a point where you lose hope in Allah — even in the aspects of this world. Some narrations mention that Ya'qub and Yusuf were separated for 70 years. Others mention 40 years of separation. But Ya'qub never, throughout this entire journey, lost his hope. Rather, he spoke to Allah directly:

"Oh Allah, I only complain to You. I only speak to You about the difficulties that I am experiencing."

And Allah says: وَهُوَ كَظِيمٌ — kaẓīm means a person who holds back. He was holding himself back and not exposing his grief and sadness to people. He would hold it back. He would not tell people how sad he was and what he was experiencing. He would let it come out on the sajjadah when he would speak to Allah. So after all of these years he never lost hope.

We will never lose hope in Allah's mercy and Allah's support. The Prophet ﷺ teaches us:

(Jami' al-Tirmidhi, Hadith 3479)

That we should pray to Allah in a way that we believe that He will respond to us. Like Zakariya عليه السلام never lost hope that Allah would give him a child, even though he had passed the age of 80 to 90 years old. This is something that we believe in.

The Sweetness of Reunion

So when the bearer of glad tidings finally came:

They placed the shirt on the father's face and his eyesight came back. And then, a little while later, we can only imagine the epitome of excitement and enjoyment and sweetness that Yusuf and Ya'qub experienced when they were finally reunited — when they finally got back together.

And he raised his father and he honored his father. Words will not be able to do justice to explain the sweetness of these two people being united again. And in the narrations of Tafsir, the scholars speak about the way Yusuf honored his father — and he gave him love, and he took him and he hugged him.

May Allah unite all the children with their parents who have been separated from them in this world. And if the parents have left this world, may Allah unite us with our parents and our loved ones in the Akhirah, and allow that meeting to be a sweet meeting.

If only we were there, we could have seen the love in the air — the enjoyment, the ecstasy of love between a father and a son after all these years. And this is how we will feel when we finally meet our loved ones in the Akhirah.

It is truly unique how Allah details this beautiful incident. May Allah allow us to benefit from it.