At any rate...

At any rate, it is from here that the entanglement of the brothers with Yusuf first starts, and didactic lessons can be gleaned from the story. It says: “Certainly there are signs (of Allah’s sovereignty) in (the story of) Yusuf and his brothers for the inquirers.” What lesson might be more instructive than this? One finds a group of powerful individuals with well calculated strategies, through envy trying their utmost to kill a seemingly weak person.

In the end all their plans turn against them making it possible for him to be elevated to a position of influence, governing a vast territory with everyone bowing before him instead! This shows that when Allah’s will is at work, His plans may be implemented by even the opponents of those plans.

This denotes that a truly faithful believer is never left alone and even if the whole world were to unite for his extermination, he would not even suffer the slightest injury if the will of Allah does not desire such. Surah Yusuf - Verse 8 إِذْ قَالُوا لَيُوسُفُ وَأَخُوهُ أَحَبُّ إِلَي اَبِينَا مِنَّا وَنَحْنُ عُصْبَةٌ إِنَّ أَبَانَا لَفي ضَلالٍ مُّبِينٍ 8. “When they said: ‘Verily, Yusuf and his brother (Benjamin) are dearer to our father than we, while we are a (strong) group.

Verily, our father is in manifest error’.” Hadrat Ya‘qub had 12 sons, two of whom (Yusuf and Benjamin) were of the same mother and the rest from another mother. Ya‘qub’s interest in Yusuf (because of his young age or because of his virtues) made his brothers envy him.

They not only envied him but also by saying: /wa nahnu ‘usbatun/ “ while we are a (strong) group ” made it clear that they were arrogant in spirit and, because of this, they accused their father of being mistaken and deviated in his focus of affection. The verse says: “When they said: ‘Verily, Yusuf and his brother (Benjamin) are dearer to our father than we, while we are a (strong) group.

...” Many of those who are at comparatively lower rungs of position and rank in society try to degrade those who rank higher in society in order to compensate for their own shortcomings. There are differences between the words, discrimination and differentiation, the former implies attaching importance to someone over others for no justified reason and the latter refers to distinguishing on the basis of ones abilities and conditions.

For example, a physician’s prescriptions or a teacher’s marks differ since they must vary in accordance with the rules which are not of an oppressive nature.