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Prophet Yusuf
Islam gives the concept of surrender to God and to be at peace with His Will, even at times of extreme loss. The spirit of Islam, as one reads the Quran, seems to be God-consciousness, to be aware of His Presence, to remember Him at all times, to be obedient to Him and to fear His displeasure and most importantly, to love Him the most. All other loves and kinds of obedience should be under it. His Obedience, Love, and Remembrance should be dominant over everything else.
After knowing these facts, one particular incident in the Quran has kept me confused. It is about Prophet Yaqub (Jacob, peace be upon him) who loves his son, Yusuf (Joseph, peace be upon him) so much that, when they get separated, the grief consumes him to an extent that, he loses his eye-sight in crying for his son. I asked a few local scholars about it, but they said, it is okay that he missed his son so much because it never dominated love of God. But this answer fails to satisfy the doubts in mind.
First of all, to cultivate grief for so long a period, rather than letting it go. After all, we have been taught that everything is given by God and when He Wills, He can take it back too. Is it not against the concept of sabr to grieve over a loss for such a long time and just letting things go? -
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Prophet Yusuf
updated 1 year, 6 months ago
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I think it was not just about losing a son. It was much more, and much worse which was difficult to reconcile and absorb, humanly.
Besides losing Yousuf, possibly his favorite child, it was also about betrayal and being lied to by one’s own offspring, when you know it but can’t do anything and are helpless. This is not easy to live with. You can’t even talk your heart out to your children for support after such a devastating incident, as they are the reason of your grief. If you talk to others about your grief, it will be like scandalizing your own family and children.
The anger, the anguish, and the pain of this betrayal compounded with despair about not just losing Yousuf but being unaware of his fate! What happened to him! Did he survive or not? If not, how was he killed? How could his own brothers do this to him? May be they slit his throat!! How can his own brothers kill him like that. Which one of them must have killed him?? These endless thoughts about the worst of possibilities would have played in his mind on repeat, again and again. The thoughts and the unanswered questions would keep on sending endless shudders to him at nights and keep him awake. His eyes would refuse to stop shedding tears !! Only if he could know about the final fate of his son, even the confirmation of his death would have given him some peace. But this despair was worst then not knowing what happened to him.
At the end it was not just love of Yousuf and grief of losing him, but his despair and helplessness in getting the answers, the shock of betrayal by his own sons. He was totally devastated! Who wouldn’t be?
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But accepting things as they are which are not under our control by convincing yourself that it is what it is it’s can’t be changed not make you at peace? I mean as soon as you accept the situation that it’s not under your control you can’t do anything, and letting things go make you at peace?
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Answer to your question is the verse 12:87
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