“And come the brothers of Yusuf and appeared before him. He recognizes them, while they did not recognize him.”
TAFSEER ;
What we can surmise from these three or four words is that a number of years have gone by, and the drought has spread in all of Egypt and the surrounding lands all the way to Filistine.
By the time the drought reaches Filistine, they run out of their food, so people are sending their relatives and friends to Egypt to get the grain.
What this shows is that Yusuf was doing a superb and marvelous job of managing the resources of the country.
He was so good that other countries were getting their grain from Egypt. Egypt has so much surplus.
They have enough and can even trade with other people.
A number of years have gone by from the seven. Perhaps we are in the fifth year or the sixth year;
Allah does not mention because we don’t need to know.
It is definitely not the early years because the drought has spread and people are now desperate and coming to Egypt to get the grain.
This shows us how perfect of a manager and financial minister Yusuf was.
“The brothers of Yusuf came. They entered upon him, and of course he recognized them, but they had no idea this was Yusuf.”
These are the same people and they are dressed in the same clothes. They are speaking in Hebrew.
How could he not recognize them?
He recognizes all ten of them. They had no idea this was Yusuf.
How could they possibly know?
Who could imagine that this child of seven, eight, nine was now the minister and the most powerful man in Egypt?
Additionally, Yusuf is dressed in the garb of the Egyptians and speaking the language of the Egyptians. .
There is simply no indication that this might have been Yusuf.
He recognized them immediately, and they had no knowledge.
They didn’t see through who Yusuf was. To them, Yusuf was an unknown entity.
Why did they go to Yusuf?
Not everybody would be trading with Yusuf obviously. Yusuf is the minister.
The people of Egypt would not enter into the palace and trade with the minister.
The reason is because they were foreigners,
1)They required a higher delegation.
2)They were asking for a large quantity.
These are 11 sons of Ya‘qub and all of these eleven are adults, and each one has two, three, or four wives.
They must have a family of a hundred
one hundred and fifty.
They are coming to Egypt, and they want to purchase a large quantity of grain, and they are foreigners, so they don’t get to interact with the lower tradesmen.
They are sent higher up until they get to Yusuf himself.
REFLECTION :
‣ The seven years of prosperity has passed already
‣ Now they’ve saved up enough for Egypt, but also have enough to sell to people outside of Egypt
• Because others weren’t prepared for the drought
• The surrounding areas are also suffering from drought that afflicted the area
• So now the brothers come along with those who were afflicted from the drought
without knowing that Yusuf is in charge of Egypt
‣ Yusuf was very trustworthy
• Doesn’t want rich to take advantage of the poor
- People to buy a lot of grain from Egypt, and sell it at an extreme price and the
poor are suffering - Yusuf gave in rations to prevent this
‣ Brothers of Yusuf come, and he recognized them, but they don’t recognize him
‣ “Wa hom laho minkeroon”
• It’s as if they denyed him
• They brushed it aside because they saw the resemblance, but dismissed it
• Before you reach the age of puberty, there’s a lot of drastic change - He left during that age, but they were mostly older, so he recognized them
LESSON
Being generous with ones guest, he showed great treatment to his brothers when they arrived for the first time to Egypt.
He who believes in Allah should be kind and hospitable to his guest( Hadith)