Yusuf · Makki · ayah 83 of 111

Yusuf 12:83

قَالَ بَلْ سَوَّلَتْ لَكُمْ أَنفُسُكُمْ أَمْرًا ۖ فَصَبْرٌ جَمِيلٌ ۖ عَسَى ٱللَّهُ أَن يَأْتِيَنِى بِهِمْ جَمِيعًا ۚ إِنَّهُۥ هُوَ ٱلْعَلِيمُ ٱلْحَكِيمُ

“[Jacob] said, "Rather, your souls have enticed you to something, so patience is most fitting. Perhaps Allāh will bring them to me all together. Indeed, it is He who is the Knowing, the Wise."”

Saheeh International

Essence

Bereaved again, Yaqub repeats his first grief's words, beautiful patience, then hopes further that Allah, who alone knows, will bring them all back.

A reflection

It is He who knows, and He who is wise

Yaqub has just lost a second son, and possibly a third. His other sons stand before him with a story he cannot verify. He does not know what happened in Egypt. He does not know where Yusuf is. He does not know why.

And he ends with two names of Allah, set in the strongest form the language has. Indeed it is He, He alone, who is the Knowing, the Wise.

The commentaries fill in the objects. Knowing my state, says one; wise in what He makes. Knowing my loneliness, my loss, my grief, says another, and the truth of what they say. Wise, says a third, in that He did not test me with this except for a wisdom and a good.

So the ayah moves knowing away from Yaqub and gives it back to its Owner. That is the heart of majesty here. It is not that Yaqub knows nothing. It is that he is not the one who has to know.

There is a quiet rebuke in this for human pride. When something goes wrong, we rush to read it. We build theories, assign meanings, declare what it was for. The ego wants to be the one who understands.

Yaqub has a lifetime of prophethood behind him. Yet he does not claim to read this. He says: He knows. And the lexicons give wisdom an image that suits the moment: the part of a bridle that stops a horse from bolting. Allah's wisdom holds events back from running where they would ruin.

There is rest in that. A man whose business partner cheated him writes one line in a notebook each night for a year: He knows, and He is wise. He says the line did not explain anything. It simply stopped him needing to.

The humbling and the comfort are the same sentence.

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.