Yusuf · Makki · ayah 58 of 111

Yusuf 12:58

وَجَآءَ إِخْوَةُ يُوسُفَ فَدَخَلُوا۟ عَلَيْهِ فَعَرَفَهُمْ وَهُمْ لَهُۥ مُنكِرُونَ

“And the brothers of Joseph came [seeking food], and they entered upon him; and he recognized them, but he was to them unknown.[602]”

Saheeh International

Essence

Ten men walk in for grain and stand before the brother they threw away; he knows them at once, and they cannot place his face.

A reflection

They did not fail to see him; they had no room

The usual explanation is simple. Years had passed. He had been a boy, now he was a grown man in the robes of Egypt's court. Of course they did not know him.

That is true, and the commentaries say it. But the word the ayah chooses says more.

It does not say they did not know him. It calls them deniers of him, using a word from a root the lexicons define by its opposite. It is the heart meeting something it cannot picture, and refusing to settle on it.

The lexicons quote an old line of verse to show it. She did not know me, and all she failed to know was grey hair and a bald crown.

A face changed by time, and a heart with no place to put it.

One classical commentary lists the reasons, and the list is worth reading slowly. They parted from him as a child. They believed he had died. He had dropped out of their minds, through how little they thought of him or cared what became of him.

And then the sharpest line. A boy thrown in a well and sold for a few coins; this man on a throne. The distance was so great that, had the thought crossed their minds, they would have called it false.

In a lift at work a man talks for three floors to the new managing director. Only later does someone tell him she grew up on his street. He never once spoke to her as a boy, so there was nothing in him to recognise her with.

That is what the word holds. Not poor eyesight. A memory that had kept no room for this person at all.

The brothers had filed Yusuf under finished. And the face across the counter could not be placed, because they had never expected to see it again.

The full entry has 5 more reflections, questions to sit with, and "Live it today" - with the words, the roots and the tafsir alongside. Free, no account, works offline.