Yusuf · Makki · ayah 7 of 111
Yusuf 12:7
۞ لَّقَدْ كَانَ فِى يُوسُفَ وَإِخْوَتِهِۦٓ ءَايَـٰتٌ لِّلسَّآئِلِينَ
“Certainly were there in Joseph and his brothers signs for those who ask, [such as]”
Saheeh International
Essence
The signs are not only in Yusuf but in his brothers too, and they open only to the one who stops and asks.
A reflection
Signs in the brothers, not only in the hero
Most of us read this surah as Yusuf's story. He is the hero, the one we admire and imagine ourselves to be. The brothers are the obstacle: the people who do the bad thing so that the good man can rise.
The ayah does not allow that reading. It says the signs are in Yusuf and his brothers. The same phrase holds both. The brothers are not scenery around the signs. They are a site of signs in their own right.
One commentary lists what the story contains, and the brothers are first on the list. Their envy, and where their envy led them. Then the dream and how it came true. Then Yusuf's patience against desire, in slavery and in prison. Then Ya'qub's grief and patience, and how he reached what he longed for.
Think about why the brothers might matter more to most readers. Very few of us will be thrown into a well and rise to govern a nation. Far more of us will, at some point, resent a sibling, a colleague or a friend who seems more loved. Far more of us will make a plan we are ashamed of, and tell ourselves we will be good afterwards.
A man has loved this surah since boyhood and has always quietly cast himself as Yusuf. At his younger sister's wedding their father's speech is all about her. He feels something old and hot rise in his chest. Driving home he understands, for the first time, which character he has been all along.
That is not a defeat. The brothers' story also ends at a door that opens. But you cannot walk through it if you have never admitted you are in their half of the ayah.
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