Ayah 5 : Don’t tell your brothers!

Ayah 5 : Don’t tell your brothers! 

Yusuf AS told his father about the dream. Now his father Yaqoob AS responds and tells him 2 things. One of the things he tells him is in this ayah i.e. ayah 5.

Translation: My young/ little son, don’t narrate / tell your dream to your brothers (as a result of you telling them) then they might make a scheme against you for sure. Without a doubt, devil, when it comes to human beings is certainly an obvious and open enemy.

My son = يبني and بني is اسم تصغير (ism tasgheer) which means my little son/ young boy/ my dear son

Allah is highly selective in what he is telling us from the story, so every little bit that he tells us needs our attention. 

Yusuf AS addressed his father in the previous ayah by saying “My father”. When you talk to someone, you don’t have to say their name when they are right in front of you. Calling someone by their name ( نداء) is أداة تنبيه. When you call someone, it’s a means to get their attention. It’s usually done when someone is far away or they are not paying attention. Here, it is an intimate one on one conversation so they don’t have to use أداة تنبيه. In that context for Yusuf AS to say, “My father” and for Yaqoob AS to say “My beloved son” requires our attention. 

What’s the benefit of calling each other?

The way you address someone with love & respect is actually a form of comfort.

Sometimes parents never tell their children they love them or they don’t call them with loving names. Whenever you cushion whatever you are going to say, it has an impact on the listener. They get to know that love & respect is always there. Sometimes when parents give good advice, but they don’t talk to their children in a way that makes them feel respected & loved. Then even a good advice isn’t very attractive. No one wants to hear it. They could have made it a lot easier to absorb if they had addressed their children by calling their name & using a good tone. Tone changes everything!

The words are also indicative of the tone. Yaqoob AS talked in a loving, comforting & protective tone to his son instead of just giving him an instruction.

Whenever someone in the family thinks that they have an influence over others, they think that they can talk however they want. They don’t talk to someone outside of the family like that. There’s some kind of decorum & respect. When guests come over they become like dignified human beings.

خَيْرُكُمْ خَيْرُكُمْ لِأَهْلِهِ

Prophet SAW said the best of you are the ones that are at their best behaviour to their own families. 

The way Yaqoob AS called his son is like he’s putting his arm around him, holding him close and comforting him. In the previous ayah, Yusuf AS was scared. He wasn’t sure how his dad was going to respond to him about his dream. He had no one else to talk to. He trusted his dad & told him about his dream anyway, although reluctantly & with hesitation. When he said that, the first act of يبني by Yaqoob AS already descended all kinds of comfort onto his son & there’s a sort of ease that dawned on his child. 

Normally in translation we skip over the part “my son” like it’s insignificant. In fact it’s a pretty big deal. The way we talk to our children, the comfort we give them, the acceptance we give them, the way we make them feel loved by those words we address them with. It shouldn't change even when they grow older. 

A child needs comforting from both father and mother. A father shouldn’t be an authoritarian thinking that it would help their kids face the real world. Yusuf AS was raised with so much love & later on he was in jail & he could handle himself. He was in a crazy situation in a palace & he could handle himself. He was facing the king and he could handle himself over there too. It doesn’t come from the fact that he was a prophet, it comes from the fact that he was nurtured and empowered and made to feel confident in himself by the love & care that he received from his father. Which is why this is a starting point in the surah. Everything that’s going to transpire is like a tree that’s going to grow, comes from this seed. This conversation b/w the father and son is that seed. So it’s not insignificant. And if it’s so significant that this upbringing leads to the saving of a generation! The entire nation was saved from starvation by the validation that father gave to the son. 

How many future generations are we destroying by not validating our children & what trees they might transform into? What good could they bring to the world? What amazing things they can accomplish if we believe in them. We give them nurturing love & care. if we do our job as parents! يبني !!

لَا تَقْصُصْ رُؤْيَاكَ عَلَىٰ إِخْوَتِكَ

Before Yaqoob AS tells his son what to do, he advises him not to tell his dream to his brothers.

The words are لا تقصص, not لا تخبر (don’t inform) or لا تنبه ( don’t inform, don’t give the news of) , لا تقل ( don’t talk to), لا تحدث (don’t say)

He said لا تقصص. Allah dropped an interesting anchor here! Don’t tell the قصة of this dream to your brothers. We have the gift of having this narration told to us.

What are we learning from that? 

Allah in his wisdom knows when to tell someone something. Allah knew in his wisdom when to reveal this story to the Prophet SAW. And the father who is divinely guided, knows that some things / stories are not meant to be told to certain people. We have to have the wisdom in our life to know what things to share with some people and what things not to share with some people. What time and what people we have to share things with. Especially when it comes to the family. You don’t tell everything to everybody when you know someone will have a problem. If some of them can’t be trusted because of their behaviour. If some of them have been abusive in the past. If some of them can’t handle such situations because they weren’t able to handle such situations before.

Don’t put yourself in that position when it comes to your brothers. Don’t tell your 11 brothers you saw this. Both of them already know what this dream means. Who it’s about? And who’s about to be humbled?

Why not tell your brothers?

The idea of sajdah is to be overpowered by something. We are overpowered in the awe of Allah when we drop into sajdah. Here clearly, there’s a conflict in which one is in a position of superiority and one is being suppressed. It seems at this point that Yusuf AS is being suppressed and eventually there’s going to be a state when his brothers are going to feel like they are suppressed and they are overpowered & they are going to get humbled because of what is granted to Yusuf AS. so the tables are going to turn. So, there’s a conflict image that’s being depicted. Yaqoob AS didn’t mention the mother which means the conflict part is the 11 brothers.

رُؤْيَاكَ

Your dream رؤياك as opposed to هذه رؤيا (this dream). Don’t tell this dream to your brothers. He said “your” dream. It’s suggesting that this dream puts Yusuf AS at the center of attention. This dream puts him in the position of superiority & authority. And the brothers don’t want to see that. Brothers are already familiar with divine revelations, they are muslims. So if they get to know that this gift of prophethood was given to Yusuf AS, they already don’t like him and on top of that they can’t say anything about him because he is a prophet.

It is a remarkable parallel with the life of our Prophet SAW & israelites. Israelites hated the fact that this revelation came to him.

Yaqoob AS is pretty observant & aware of every word and every emotional expression that’s taking place in front of him. He knows who deserves soft love and who deserves tough love.

Father knows that the brothers have the tendency not to take responsibility upon themselves but find someone to blame. He already knows how they think. Therefore he knows if Yusuf AS tells them this, it’s not going to be good. Avoid this conversation with your brothers at all costs!

Yusuf AS is a kid and he’s being told to be careful of his own siblings. Kids look up to their older siblings. They become a role model for their younger siblings. But that’s been taken away from Yusuf AS. He’s being advised not to have that kind of relationship with his older siblings. Because the older siblings have a toxic relationship with him.

The Quran is teaching us that there are realities inside of our families that are beyond our control. You need to warn your kids about them. You need to protect your child.

فَيَكِيدُوا لَكَ كَيْدًا

Yaqoob AS let his son know that his brothers would scheme against him.

In the Quran we have a مفعول به directly attached فكيدون, without the ل. It’s not فكيدولي, it’s فكيدون. It’s the ضمير متصل (attached pronoun) immediately. 

فَإِن كَانَ لَكُمْ كَيْدٌ فَكِيدُونِ 

In لك the ل is an add on to emphasize that especially when it comes to you, they are going to scheme against you. Then he adds a مفعول مطلق (an object of the verb whose only purpose is to stress the intensity of the act), as if Yaqoob AS saying, don’t tell them because I’m telling you they are certainly going to make a scheme especially when it comes to you.

كَيْد

Scheming is done in secret. The meaning includes secrecy in it. It also means it has many steps. كادا in arabic was used for when someone is holding in vomit or a woman is going to have her menses but she’s holding it in كادة المرء. When fire is about to pour out but it’s building up before it’s poured out of the bellow. All of those thematic meanings have something harmful/ disgusting/ impure/ treacherous/ brewing inside and eventually it comes out. You won’t know it’s coming until the last moment, until it’s too late. 

Father is telling his son that if you tell this dream to your brothers, they are going to smile in your face & they will make an elaborate, evil scheme and you won’t know they are scheming until the very last minute.

How does the dad know all of this?

He knows this because he knows his kids. He knows that they are two faced. He knows that they don’t talk to him really, they only talk to each other. They even talk trash about their father which is going to come in the next ayaat.

إِنَّ الشَّيْطَانَ لِلْإِنسَانِ عَدُوٌّ مُّبِينٌ

The one that’s playing a game with your family are not your brothers. This is not a new game. They don’t even know they are pawns in the game. One that’s playing the game with them is the devil. He’s been playing this game for a very long time. And he will continue to play this game with every single one of them, with you & me if he gets any chance. He’s going to come at us with jealousy, suspicion, assumptions, judgements, lusts, greed, hopelessness, despair & fear. He’s going to use whatever he can to get to us! Yaqoob AS is saying to his son, Right now I told you to be careful about your brothers, I need you to know something, I’m not saying your brothers are evil. Yes, they are to the point of harming you but there’s a much larger problem behind all of that. The much larger problem is,

No doubt the devil, when it comes to human beings, is an open enemy. 

It’s like Yaqoob AS is reminding himself that the devil told Allah when he was first cast out, I will come at them from all directions. I will fill your hell with them. I will take them off your straight path. Even if they are the prophet's kids. I will make their jealousy so toxic and their feelings so crazy that they will develop a world in it of itself. Their feelings will create an alternative universe in their minds. They will live in that universe and will justify all kinds of things to themselves because of their feelings. I will keep injecting steroids into those feelings & those feelings would keep growing out of proportion & they can’t see reality for what it is!

Father diagnoses his kids as someone who has ill feelings and instead of taking the right road to address those feelings, they allow those feelings to brew by talking to only those who would reinforce those feelings.

It’s going to grow & grow & grow! That’s exactly what the devil wants. Because he himself exactly felt like that when Adam AS was created and Allah said when I’m done creating him, make him sajdah. He was festering those feelings. Angels asked Allah, are you going to create someone who would spill blood?

Devil kept quiet, he didn’t say anything! He let it brew and fester inside! What was festering inside him? Why did he have to create him?! I’m not here? I’ve got all the qualifications he need. But he didn’t say anything to Allah until it was too late. He kept quiet. That was his epic mistake. He said well if I made this mistake, I hate these human beings so much, I’m going to make sure that they make the same exact mistake!

Shaytan wants us to feel what he felt! Yaqoob AS in his wisdom sees it.

عَدُوٌّ مُّبِينٌ

We don’t see the shaytaan, then how is it an open enemy? مبين is clear & clarifying. The Quran is clear and clarifying and now you see shaytaan is clear & clarifying, what?! Because Allah has made his word clear. He clarified to us the path. And the devil has made his intentions clear from the day 1. Allah has made it clear what the devil intends. He will clarify for you what he wants to do. It's we who think it’s a secret! 

Yaqoob AS is telling his son that his sons have failed to recognize the scheme of the devil. They think it’s their own feelings. And they forgot the truth that the devil is obviously, clearly an enemy to the human beings.

He is saying, Son! I want you to remember that right now the game of devil is jealousy & tomorrow this game might be lust, and the day after that it might be greed and the day after that it might be arrogance and the day after that it might be forgetfulness.

The devil is the real enemy. It’s the devil, you have to develop hatred for! Not them. So as long as human being is breathing, there’s hope. They can recognize the plot of the devil, shun the devil and turn back to Allah. If you hate people, it’s as if you are condemning them. Whereas you should have been condemning only & only the shaytaan.

No family is immune from complications. Allah won’t give us a normal family. There’s going to be some weirdo in our family whether we like it or not. There’s going to be somebody who’s troubled, that’s just how he made us. You are tied to them for life!

How there’s Yaqoob AS and Yusuf AS on one hand and the brothers on the other hand one family. It’s like a mismatch, but it’s not. It’s the decree of Allah!

We have to let go of the idea of some kind of a life where people in our lives aren’t going to be a source of difficulty for us. And we also have to let go of the idea that the people who are a source of difficulty are some sort of devil. All we can say is that they have failed to recognize the animosity of the devil towards them. When they weren’t able to let go of their pride, ill conceived notions.

We are also seeing the helplessness of a good father. Who knows his children have a problem. Who better to know than a prophet that his children have a shaytan problem.

Every human being has to take their own steps. We coming from a good family doesn’t ensure that we are free from the trap of the devil.

Blessed lineage & righteousness

If we start thinking blood or ethnicity is somehow more righteous, we are clearly deluded.