12. Yusuf

Alif lām rā’: God knows best what He means by these [letters]. Those, verses, are the verses of the Book, the Qur’ān (the genitive annexation carries the meaning of [partitive] min, ‘from’) that makes plain, the one that manifests truth [distinguishing it] from what is falsehood.

We will relate to you the best of narratives in what We have revealed, in Our revealing, to you this Qur’ān, though (wa-in: in is softened, in other words [understand it as] wa-innahu) prior to it you were of the heedless.

Mention, when Joseph said to his father, Jacob: ‘O my father (read yā abati to indicate the omitted yā’ of genitive annexation [sc. of yā abī]; or read yā abata to indicate that an alif, originally a yā’, has been omitted) I saw, in my sleep, eleven planets and the sun and the moon, I saw them ([repeated] for emphasis) prostrating themselves before me’ (sājidīn: this plural form is used to describe [the act of] ‘prostration’, which is an attribute associated with rational beings).

He said, ‘O my son, do not relate your vision to your brothers, lest they plot against you some plot, [lest] they scheme to kill you, out of envy, knowing that the interpretation [of the dream] is that they represent the [eleven] planets, your mother, the sun and your father, the moon. Truly Satan is to man a manifest foe, [one] of evident enmity.

Thus, in the way that you have seen, will your Lord prefer you, choose you, and teach you the interpretation of events, the interpretation of visions, and perfect His grace upon you, with prophethood, and upon the House of Jacob — [upon] his sons — as He perfected it, with prophethood, formerly on your fathers Abraham and Isaac. Truly your Lord is Knower, of His creatures, Wise’, in what He does with them.

Verily in, the tale of, Joseph and his brethren — who were eleven — are signs, lessons, for those who inquire, about their tale.

Mention, when they, that is, [when] some of Joseph’s brothers, said, to some of the others: ‘Surely Joseph (la-Yūsufu is the subject) and his brother, his full brother Benjamin, are dearer (ahabbu is the predicate) to our father than we are, though we be a [hardy] band, a group. Lo! our father is in plain aberration, in manifest error, for preferring those two to us.

Kill Joseph or cast him away into some land, that is, into some distant land, so that your father might be solely concerned with you, so that he might turn [his attention] to you and not be distracted by anyone else, and that thereafter, that is, after killing Joseph or casting him away, you might be a righteous folk’, by repenting.

One of them, namely, Judah, said, ‘Do not kill Joseph, but cast him, throw him, into the bottom of a well (ghayābat al-jubb is the darkest recess of a well; a variant reading has the plural [ghayābāt]), so that some caravan might pick him up, if you are to do anything’, of what you desire, in the way of separating [Joseph from us]: so content yourselves with this [solution].