you are in your ancient error’.

you are in your ancient error’.” It becomes evident that ‘persisting in his old error’ does not mean error in belief. On the contrary, it means being in error in refusing to recognize what they perceived as the reality about Yusuf. However these meanings show that they behaved unto that old great prophet very rudely and boldly.

Once they remarked their father had been in a manifest aberration, and here they told him: “…you are in your ancient error’.” They were unaware of the intimacy and sincerity of the old man of Kan‘an, and regarded him as not being as enlightened and illuminated as them. They did not think that future events might be as clear to him as a reflection in a mirror.

He said: ‘Did I not tell you I know from Allah what you do not know?’” After a number of difficult nights and days, one day Ya‘qub heard a loud voice proclaiming that the caravan of Kan‘an had just arrived from Egypt. Unlike the previous occasion, the brothers arrived in joyous spirits and went straight to their father’s house. Before anybody else, Bashir, ‘the bearer of good news’, came up to the old grieving man and placed the shirt over his face.

Ya‘qub was unable to see the shirt, but just before it was placed on his face, he sensed the familiar scent of his Yusuf. A wonderful excitement overwhelmed the old man, the scent intensified when the shirt fell on his face, and suddenly he felt his eyes were opened and he was able to see.

The world, with all its beauties, was once again before his eyes; as the Qur’an says: “Then, when the bearer of the good news came, he cast it (the shirt) on his (Jacob’s) face and (forthwith) he regained his sight...” The brothers and their entourage burst into tears of joy and he, with a decisive tone, told them: “…‘Did I not tell you I know from Allah what you do not know?’” If the purpose of the Qur’an that says ‘his eyes turned white’ is a decrease and diminishing of the eyesight, then the term /basiran/ means illumination, and it indicates that sadness and joy both leave an impact on one’s sense of vision.