“They said: ‘If he steals, a brother of his had stolen before.’ But Yusuf kept it secret within his heart and did not reveal it to them. He said: ‘You are in a worse situation, and Allah knows best (the truth) of what you state’.”
Surah Yusuf #77
TAFSEER
“They said, ‘If he is stealing, then indeed he had a brother before him who also was a thief.’”
What is all of this about?
They were adamant that “none of us could be thieves.” Now, Binyamin is caught red-handed, so they have to dissociate themselves from Binyamin,
and they point out that “Well, he is not really our full brother. He is a half brother, and he had another brother in the past [Yusuf].”
Always family politics is there. “That side of the family. If he is a thief, then he used to also have a brother who was a thief before him.”
Where did this come from?
What is this about?
Scholars say that either this is an outright lie, or they are exaggerating a story that happened when Yusuf was much younger.
The one that seems to be the strongest one is that Yusuf’s maternal grandfather was a pagan and idol-
His mother’s father was an idol-worshipper, and he wanted to get rid of this idolatry in his household, he took the idol and he gave a story around it to make his grandfather realize that this was not a proper religion.
He did this while he was a young child.
When he did this, his grandfather accused him of stealing the idol, which might have been true, but in this case there is a greater daw‘ah to be done and that is to get him away from idolatry.
They exaggerated this tale and said,
“If he stole this, he used to have a brother who was also a thief.”
They know that he wasn’t an actual thief.
They are Muslims and they know that this was being done for a legitimate reason, but they want to dissociate and cut off and give an excuse that
“The reason why we were so confident is that we were speaking about our full brothers. As for Binyamin, he is a half-brother and he used to have a brother who was a thief before.”
“But Yusuf kept it to himself and did not reveal it.”
Reveal what? Many things.
1) Off course, is his identity. He didn’t reveal his identity.
2) He didn’t reveal his anger because he is controlling his anger now. They have just accused him of being a thief. He doesn’t reveal his own identity.
3) He doesn’t defend himself. He knows the story and he could have defended: “That is not stealing. You cannot call me a thief.”
But he has to hide it because obviously the only other person who could know the full story other than the brothers is Yusuf. He cannot tell them anything.
“You have accused two people of stealing: Binyamin and Yusuf. You are worse off than them.”
The stronger interpretation is that he physically said “you are worse off.”
What he kept to himself was his anger, identity, and defense.
This also shows us that here he doesn’t defend himself, whereas ten years ago when he was accused of another crime, he defended himself.
This shows us that it is permissible for the Muslim to defend, and it is permissible to remain quiet, depending on which of the two is greater. We don’t need to respond to every accusation. You use your wisdom. You use your judgement
He then says a vague ( not clearly) statement. You can imagine now that they think this is the minister and they think this is the ‘aziz and now the ‘aziz tells them, “You are worse off.”
This is cryptic (mysterious meaning) It flew over their heads, and they didn’t understand it, but Yusuf knew what he was meaning, and it was the only thing he could say in his anger without giving his identity
And Allah knows what you are saying.”
This means: “Your characteristics of Yusuf and Binyamin, Allah is aware that they are not true.”
He leaves them with this cryptic statement and statement that he calms himself down by saying, but he does not reveal his full identity to his brothers because now is not the time.
How could he be doing this? Why isn’t he revealing himself?
we have two options.
The first of them is that we assume that Allah inspired him.
The second is that for example, that his brother is in physical danger or emotional stress, so he wants to rescue him.
He knows that his father cannot come right now to Egypt. Maybe the political situation would not allow foreigners to come.
Either way, we have to trust in his judgment. Either Allah told him, or there are factors that we don’t know about and Yusuf knows what he is doing that he is not telling his father right now and he is keeping Binyamin and he will bring his father later on.
LESSON
1) DO not talk about some one when they are not there.
2) EVIL always clings to us unless we make an effort to rid ourselves of it.
The two great evil that these brothers had was their jealousy for Yusuf (AS) and their propensity ( natural inclination ),to lie.
Even after many years they still had these despicable traits. Time did not do anything to wash it away.
They still accused Yusuf (AS) of great evil even though they had not seen him for years.
They still had this darkness in their hearts.
So if you have some evil within yourself you have to realize that you need to make the effort to rid yourself of it now.
Do not think that such evil will leave after some time if you do not make the effort to remove it now.
On the contrary ( opposite), it will only linger ( remain) and it may even get worse.
So if you find some jealousy in your heart or
some other character trait ( personal nature ) that you know is not pleasing to Allah (swt), then try your best to clean yourself of it today.
Do not wait until tomorrow. Tomorrow may very well be the day that you return to your Lord.
2. IT IS BELOVED to Allah for us to hold our TONGUES even when we have the ability to speak.
We always should check ourselves before we SPEAK.
We should not let LOOSE our tongue whenever we find some advantage over our opponent.
We need to follow the example of Yusuf (AS).
Before we say anything we have to always ask ourselves if what we are going to say will be PLEASING to our Allah or not?
We must keep SILENT no matter how strong is the urge within us to speak.
The Prophet (PBUH) has told us that the believer should speak good or keep silent.
Good is what is pleasing to Allah. So unless you are certain that what you are going to say is pleasing to Allah then only you must speak otherwise keep silent.