Yusuf · Makki · ayah 39 of 111

Yusuf 12:39

يَـٰصَـٰحِبَىِ ٱلسِّجْنِ ءَأَرْبَابٌ مُّتَفَرِّقُونَ خَيْرٌ أَمِ ٱللَّهُ ٱلْوَٰحِدُ ٱلْقَهَّارُ

“O [my] two companions of prison, are separate lords better or Allāh, the One,[597] the Prevailing?[598]”

Saheeh International

Essence

To two men who know what being owned means, Yusuf asks: is it better to serve many masters, or Allah, who overrules them all?

A reflection

The One whom nothing overrules

The two names at the end of the question carry the whole argument.

The One: alone in His godhood, with no second in His power or His rule. And al-Qahhār. Its root is power that comes from above and overrules everything beneath it, bringing low what it overpowers. One commentary defines the name here as the Overcomer whom none can overcome. Another says He subdued every thing, humbled it and made it serve, so that it obeys Him willingly or unwillingly.

That last phrase is the one to sit with. Willingly or unwillingly. Every creature obeys Him in the end. The willing obey in prayer. The unwilling obey in hunger, in sleep, in ageing and in death.

That is humbling for the ego, which likes to imagine itself a master. A man who boasts that he never gets ill is laid flat for a week by a virus he cannot see. A woman who runs a department of two hundred cannot make herself fall asleep. We give orders all day and are overruled by our own bodies by nightfall.

None of this is Allah showing off. A king who needs to be feared has rivals. The Qahhār has none, and needs nothing from anyone. His overruling is simply the truth about who holds what.

And for a prisoner, it is the best news there is. If He is the One who overrules every jailer, every king and every woman who threatens, then nobody in that building had the last word.

The full entry has 6 more reflections, questions to sit with, and "Live it today" - with the words, the roots and the tafsir alongside. Free, no account, works offline.