Surah Yusuf 12:36-42 - Quran Translation Commentary

36. And there entered⁶⁰ with him two young men in the prison. One of them said: “Verily, I saw myself (in a dream) pressing wine ⁶¹”. The other said: “Verily I saw myself (in a dream) carrying bread on my head and birds were eating thereof”⁶². Tell us the interpretation, surly we see that you are a virtuous man⁶³.

37. He said: “Before the food that is fed you comes to you I shall tell you its interpretation⁶⁴. This is from that which my Lord has taught me⁶⁵.Verily I have abandoned the religion of tho people who do not believe in Allah and disbelieve in the Hereafter⁶⁶.”

38. And I have followed the religion of my forefathers, Ibrahim and Is’haq and Yaqub.⁶⁷ Never could we attribute partners whatsoever to Allah. This is by the grace of Allah on us and on the mankind,⁶⁸ but most the people are not grateful.⁶⁹

39. O my two companions of prison! Are numerous lords better, or Allah, the one, the Almighty ?⁷⁰”

40. Those whom you worship beside Him (Allah) are but names which you and your forefathers have named,⁷¹ Allah has sent no authority for that. The command is for none but Allah.⁷² He has commanded that you worship none other than Him.⁷³ This is the right religion,⁷⁴ but most the mankind do not know.⁷⁵

41. “O my two companions of prison! With regard to one of you, he will pour out wine for his lord to drink; and as for the other, he will be crucified and the birds will eat from his head. So has been decreed concerning which both you enquired.”⁷⁶

42. And he said to the one whom he knew would be freed, “Mention me to your lord.⁷⁷” But Satan caused him to forget to mention it to his Lord, so he (Yusuf) remained in prison for some years.⁷⁸

Commentary

60. According to Bible one of them was a noble who served wine to Egyptian king and the other was a noble who was the king’s baker. They were sent to prison by the king for some guilt committed by them.

61.Both of them related their dreams. The wine server said that he saw in his dream that he was pressing grapes to extract wine from them.

62. The second person who related his dream was the chief of the bakers. (In Bible, in Genesis, Chapter 40, this event has been narrated, but not with the same accuracy as in Qur’an).

63. From this statement of his, it is clear that even in prison his character remained virtuous, for which he came to be known even in the prison. The Bible states:

“But the Lord was with Joseph and showed him steadfast love, and gave him favour in the sight of the keeper of the prison and the keeper of the prison committed to Joseph’s care all the prisoners who were in the prison: and whatever was done there, he was the doer of it: the keeper of the prison paid no heed to anything that was in Joseph’s care, because the Lord was with him: and whatever he did, the Lord made it prosper.” (Gen. 39:21 to 23)

Only a man who is virtuous can interpret dreams. Being conscious of this fact is a natural thing, and the dreamers turned to Yusuf for the interpretation of their dreams.

64. Since Yusuf wanted to present the Dawah of Monotheism before them, he said these words to assure them that what he is going to say would not be lengthy and they would have to get up for their meals before the talk is ended, and the reply to their main question will remain unsaid.

65. That is: The knowledge of interpreting the dreams has been granted by Allah. Yusuf did not declare it as his own achievement but only a favour from God.

66. Refers to the religion of the ruling nation of Egypt, who neither believed in oneness of Allah nor in the accountability in the Hereafter. Theirs was the religion of polytheism and materialism. Although Yusuf’s position was that of a slave and the environment of Egypt was new for him, he was not influenced by that environment, but due to his virtuous insight he remained on Allah’s true religion (Islam).

67. The meaning of these words of Yusuf was that the religion which he was following was not his national heritage but the heritage of the prophets. This is the religion of those history-making great men who came to be known for their truth, purity and fear of God. In this way Yusuf also introduced himself that he was also a link of this golden chain.

68. That is: It is a great favour of Allah that he provided guidance through these prophets to the followers of a religion which is the religion of nature. Allah has not bestowed this favour only on the family of prophets but also on mankind, because these prophets were the towers of light to the straying humanity.

69. What is meant by gratefulness here is quite clear, that is accepting Monotheism and the religion preached by the prophets as a favour from Allah.

70. That is: The people have divided this universe as belonging to different gods, and for every kind of energy a different god is said to be responsible. Such a situation is not only contrary to reality but also confusing for man in as much as he is at a loss to decide which god to worship and to remain loyal to whom. As against this, believing in one God removes all confusion and provides peace and tranquility to the mind and the heart, for accepting one God is to accept the reality ------ a God before whom everything in the universe is helpless, who is the Master and Overlord of all, who is the Almighty.

Believing in numerous gods divides man’s loyalty, while believing in one God affords a man to concentrate his loyalty on only one Being. A slave does not like to be subservient to numerous masters; he would any day prefer serving only one master. But such a sensible and simple matter is not understood by the idolaters, who believe in numerous gods. If in Egypt a few gods or idols were worshipped, in Bharat innumerable gods and idols are worshipped. In other words the polytheistic religion of Bharat is far advanced than that of the ancient Egypt.

71. This has been explained in Note No. 112 in Surah A’raf.

72. That is: The command may either be of physical nature or of Shariah in short in all matters the authority to give a decision rests with Allah alone. So far as the physical world is concerned. Allah’s commands and His decisions are enforced in that None has any right to interfere in that in the least. As for the matters dealing with the religion and the Shariah, in that too Allah ‘alone has the authority to give command. legislate and give the final decision, for He, in the real sense of the word, is the true Law Giver, and He only is worthy of being accepted as the ruler in all affairs of life.

“In whatever matter you differ, the final decision is with Allah”. -(Surah Shura-10).

73. Allah has given command-and the authority to give command rests with Allah-that you should not worship any other being than Allah, but people give command-and they have no authority to give command-that you should worship idols and others beside Allah. Allah’s command is perfect truth and people’s command is complete falsehood.

74. That is: The right and true religion is the religion of monotheism alone, and all. other religions beside that are neither right nor true.

75. This statement was made by Prophet Yusuf at a time when dark clouds were cast over the world. But this situation is also true in respect of the modern world when the light of education has spread far and wide, because the greater part of the world population is unaware of the religion of monotheism.

This dawah, message of Yusuf, which he presented before his fellow-prisoners is proof of the fact that he was blessed with the grant of prophethood, and he began his preaching in the prison itself.

76. Yusuf was able to interpret their dreams with this certainty because Allah had given him this knowledge specifically; in addition he was blessed with prophethood also. The interpretation was that the wine server would be restored his employment with the King and would again serve wine to the King, while the baker would be crucified by the King’s men and his head would be eaten by the birds. This interpretation proved to be true.

And the king said: “Verily, I saw (in a dream) seven fat cows whom seven lean ones were devouring, and seven green ears of corn and other (seven) dry. O Nobles! Explain to me my dream,” if you can interpret dreams.” (Al-Quran)

77. By mention is meant the introductory information which the prisoner who was released got in the prison. In this introduction, three things were included: (1) Yusuf’s having virtuous character, (2) the dawah of monotheism presented by him and (3) the knowledge of interpretation of dreams which Allah had especially granted to him, and according to which the interpretation of dreams made by him came to be true. In this the objective of Yusuf was that he should be introduced to the king through a person who was close to the king and who had the opportunity to form a correct opinion about him, so that his unreasonable and prolonged imprisonment might end, and opportunities for him to propagate the divine message might be made available. This was an extremely sacred objective and cannot be objected to. He had neither told him to relate the tale of his sufferings nor had he expressed his discomfiture. Even supposing that he had desired his tale of sufferings to be narrated to the king, what was wrong in that? Has not the oppressed person a right to demand justice? Even by the Shariah there is nothing wrong in demanding justice from a non-Muslim government, and Yusuf was not sent to jail by the king but by the Aziz of Egypt, and probably the king might have been unaware of the event. Therefore, Yusuf’s asking the fellow-prisoner to make a mention about him to the king was not with a view to getting recommendation from the fellow-prisoner, but it was merely for relating the exact situation. In view of all this there is no scope for the objection that what Yusuf said was below his position.

For this reason, the commentators who, on the basis of certain narratives, have deemed this act of Yusuf as wrong are themselves in the wrong, and the said narratives are not reliable.

78. That is: Satan caused him to be so negligent that he forgot to mention this important event to the king, with the result that he had to remain in jail for some years more. Satan has great prowess and interest in causing people to forget by surreptitious whispers, suggesting misleading ideas. It also becomes clear from this what Yusuf had suggested to be told to the king was a good thing, that is why Satan did not like it and caused the released wine-server to forget it. If this were an error of Yusuf, then his forgetting it was welcome, and in such a case it could not have been attributed to Satan.