71. “They
*Tafseer*
“They said, and they turned towards the crier, ‘What are you missing?’”
In this, there is a huge psychological confession that ‘we cannot be thieves.’
Thieves would run away and turn. Thieves would become scared. Thieves would know what is missing.
The first thing they did was turn towards the crier. If you are guilty and somebody says “hey, thief!”
you run away.
They weren’t guilty. They turned around and turned back and said to them calmly, “What are you missing?”
Notice they used the word ‘missing’
and not
‘stolen’
because they know they didn’t steal anything and “Perhaps something went missing, and you think we stole it.”
They didn’t use the word
‘theft’ or ‘stealing’.
They used the words ‘what are you missing.’
They turned to them. They know their innocence, and they haven’t stolen anything.
They said ,
“What are you missing?”
because they are so confident that none of them stole anything and something must have misplaced it and they are blaming them.
They are asking, “What is the problem? What are you missing?”
*Lesson*
Of the benefits of this sūrah is wisdom in *planning*. Yūsuf (‘alayhi’l-salām) has planted the cup in the sack of his brother, and now he wants to open up those sacks.
He begins with the sacks of the older brothers and works his way to the younger one.
This shows us the believer, once again, is not naïve. He knows that if he were to go straight to the sack of Binyamin, people are going to say, “Wait, hold on a second.
How did you know it was in that sack? He is planning things through and has foresight. These days we have a whole science called management.
Yūsuf demonstrates that and thinks things through. In our times, the chess player thinks ten steps ahead.
Yūsuf is thinking. This is a sign of īmān. The mu’min is not foolish. The mu’min is a wise person. Yūsuf (‘alayhi’l-salām) demonstrates this.