ﲅ ﲆ ﲇ ﲈ ﲉ ﲊ ﲋ ﲌ ﲍ ﲎ ﲏ ﲐ ﲑ ﲒ ﲓ ﲔ ﲕ ﲖ ﲗ ﲘ ﲙ ﲚ ﲛ ﲜ ﲝ ﲞ ﲟ ﲠ ﲡ ﲢ ﲣ ﲤ ﲥ ﲦ ﲧ ﲨ ﲩ
So he began [the search] with their bags before the bag of his brother; then he extracted it from the bag of his brother. Thus did We plan for Joseph. He could not have taken his brother within the religion of the king except that Allah willed. We raise in degrees whom We will, but over every possessor of knowledge is one [more] knowing.
Tafsir
Verse range: 12:76
Al-Hasan read: (wi‘ā’i akhīhi) with a damma on the wāw, which is a dialect. Sa‘īd ibn Jubayr read: (i‘ā’i akhīhi), changing the wāw into a hamza.
If you ask: Why was the pronoun for the suwā‘ (drinking cup) mentioned in the masculine several times, then made feminine? I say: They said it refers back to the siqāya (water-carrier/vessel) in the feminine, or he made the suwā‘ feminine because it can be treated as both masculine and feminine. Perhaps Joseph called it a siqāya, while his servants called it a suwā‘. Thus, in the speech connected to him, it appears as siqāya, and in the speech connected to them, it appears as suwā‘.
If you ask: What Allah permits must be good, so in what way is this stratagem good? It is nothing but slander, accusing the innocent of theft, and calling those who did not lie liars—as in His saying: {Indeed, you are thieves} (Yusuf: 70), and {What is its recompense if you are liars?} (Yusuf: 74). I say: It is in the form of slander, but it is not slander in reality. For his saying {Indeed, you are thieves} was an allusion (tawriya) to what had occurred in the nature of theft regarding their actions toward Joseph. It is also said that this statement came from the announcer, not from Joseph. As for his saying {if you are liars}, it was a hypothetical assumption for the sake of negating their innocence. A hypothetical assumption of lying is not itself a lie. Furthermore, even if he had explicitly accused them of lying—just as he explicitly accused them of theft—it would have had a basis, for they were indeed liars in their saying: {And we left Joseph by our belongings, and the wolf ate him} (Yusuf: 17).
Moreover, the ruling of this stratagem is like the "legal stratagems" (ḥiyal shar‘iyya) used to reach religious interests and benefits. Like His saying to Job, peace be upon him: {And take in your hand a bunch [of grass]} (Sad: 44), so that he might fulfill his oath without breaking it. And like the saying of Abraham, peace be upon him: "She is my sister," so that she might be saved from the hand of the disbeliever. All laws are nothing but interests and paths to avoid falling into corruption. Allah, the Exalted, knew that in this stratagem which He taught Joseph, there were great interests, so He made it a ladder and a means to them. Thus, it was good and beautiful, and the aspects of ugliness were removed from it for the reasons we have mentioned.
