Surah Yusuf – Abdul Bari Mohammed

Yusuf, "Joseph", is the twelfth surah of the Quran. A Meccan surah of 111 verses, it is 53rd in the traditional order of revelation. Unlike any other surah, it tells a single story from beginning to end: the life of the prophet Joseph, from his childhood dream to his reunion with his father Jacob in Egypt, a narrative the Quran itself calls "the best of stories" (12:3).

Name and context

The surah is devoted almost entirely to Joseph son of Jacob, whom the Prophet ﷺ described as "the noble, son of the noble, son of the noble, son of the noble: Joseph son of Jacob son of Isaac son of Abraham" (al-Bukhari 3382). Outside this surah, Joseph is named only in Al-Anaam (6:84) and Ghafir (40:34). It dates from the late Meccan period, and commentators often read it in the light of the hardships of the years before the Hijra: the story of a prophet rejected by his own brothers, then vindicated. Accounts linking its revelation to a particular question put to the Prophet are not firmly established.

The story

• Joseph's dream of eleven stars, the sun and the moon bowing down to him, and his father's warning (12:4–6).
• His brothers' jealousy, the well and the shirt stained with false blood; Jacob answers with "beautiful patience" (12:7–18).
• Sold in Egypt and raised in the house of the 'Aziz, he resists the advances of his master's wife: "God forbid!" (12:21–34).
• In prison he calls his two fellow prisoners to the one God and interprets their dreams (12:35–42), then the king's dream of seven fat and seven lean cows (12:43–49).
• Cleared of all suspicion, he is put in charge of the storehouses of the land (12:50–57).
• His brothers come to buy grain and Benjamin is held back; Jacob, blinded by grief, "complains of his sorrow only to God" and forbids his sons to despair of God's mercy (12:58–87).
• Joseph makes himself known and forgives: "No blame on you today" (12:92); the family settles in Egypt and the dream is fulfilled (12:93–101).
• The conclusion: "In their stories there is a lesson for people of understanding" (12:111).

In the hadith

The Prophet praised Joseph's patience, saying that had he himself stayed in prison as long, he would have answered the king's summons at once (al-Bukhari 3372, Muslim 151). And when Aisha was falsely accused, she said she could only repeat the words of Joseph's father: "beautiful patience" (al-Bukhari 4750).

In the Mushaf, Yusuf comes between Hud, revealed just before it, and Ar-Rad.