 As-salamu alaykum wa rahmatullah. Alhamdulillah wa shukr to Allah. It's an honor to be a part of this beautiful endeavor, in this beautiful month, in this beautiful time, and I was asked to share a few reflections on the 13th Juz of the Qur'an, which begins towards the end of Surah Yusuf and then Surah Ar-Ra'ad and Surah Ibrahim. So, we wanted to, of course, the chapter on the great Prophet Joseph, peace and blessings be upon him, the Karim Ibn Al-Karim, Ibn Al-Karim, Ibn Al-Karim. As our Prophet said, Sallallahu Alaihi Salam, that he is the noble and venerable one who is the son of a noble and venerable one, the son of a noble and venerable one, the son of a noble and venerable one, that Yusuf, peace be upon him, the son of Yaqub, Jacob, the son of Ishaq, Isaac, the son of Ibrahim, Abraham, peace be upon them all. It's a sublime story and we just wanted to highlight two verses towards the end of the Surah in the context of his triumph in the end. Of course, his life was a life of tremendous challenge, yet Allah Ta'ala delivered him from those challenges and the first verse that we wanted to reflect on together in the context of his triumph at the end is verse 92 that when his brethren were gathered and he had the opportunity to respond to their treachery earlier in his life, Allah Ta'ala highlights his statement, peace and blessing be upon him, Audhu Billah min al shaytan al rajim, he said, there is no tathrib, there is no blame upon you on this day. May God forgive you all. And he is the most merciful of those who show mercy. Tathrib is an interesting word in Arabic. It is related to the root word from which the city, Yathrib was named. In other words, Yathrib, the place of migration of the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, which would transform into Medina Munawwara, the great illuminated city. The prior name Yathrib is related to the root, which is blame, censure, rebuke. And so, you know, just like the presence of prophets, Ani Musalaam, it turns something, a place that's blameworthy or a situation that's blameworthy into a situation that's praiseworthy and beautiful. Our Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam by his mere presence in Medina Munawwara transformed it from Yathrib to its new name forever, Medina Munawwara, or also called Taba and Taiba, the pure, the holy illuminated city, the true place of civilization, Medina, so that the basis of the prophetic way is not exacting revenge. And of course, there are circumstances, the sacred law allows for retribution, but often the higher road is overlooking and pardoning. And we see this manifested in the great example of Prophet Joseph, peace be upon him, that in this time his entire, you know, from a material perspective, his entire young youth, late youth in young adulthood and maturity was robbed from him, from his time with his family, his time in his home, his time with his blessed father, the great Prophet Yaqub, peace be upon him, that from a material lens, but from a spiritual lens, of course, Allah swt was favoring him with great, great honors and distinctions that were to be manifest in different stages. And everything that happens to a believer is good for the believer. Our Prophet said, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, as Imam Ahmad relates in the Musnad, How wondrous is the believer, Allah decrees nothing for him, except that it's good for him. And of course, the greatest of believers are the prophets, peace be upon them all. And so in this triumph, when he was delivered, and now he is positioned in Egypt with honor and dignity from even a material perspective, he always was a master of honor and dignity spiritually, but now it's manifested in his worldly place in society. And he has the opportunity to take vengeance against his brothers. What does he say? On this day, there's no blame on you. Allah will forgive you. May Allah forgive you. And he is the most merciful of those who show mercy. According to a narration is reported to have said, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, which is one of the foundations of our ethical principles in Islam, is adorn yourselves with qualities that mirror the divine attributes. So Allah is the most merciful of those who show mercy. He is the most forgiving. He is the one who forgives. He is the most forgiving. He is the most forgiving. He is the most merciful. He is the most merciful. All of these beautiful names of mercy and forgiveness. One of the ways, the Sunnah of the nights of Ramadan, Allahumma Inna Ka'afuun. The great Prophet Yusuf, peace be upon him, in this maqam, he manifests. He mirrors in his own human capacity qualities that reflect the divine attributes. And so he says, And we know in the Seerah of the blessed Prophet, Sayyidina Muhammad, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, that he too manifested this at Fatimaqah. And again, at Fatimaqah in the opening of Makkah, he had the opportunity after being again treated unjustly and treacherously by his people of the Quraish who fought him for years and caused so much difficulty for him and his blessed companions, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. And he had the opportunity to have just retribution against them. It's reported that he said something similar. There's no blame upon you on this day. There's no blame upon you on this day. And so the true triumph of those that Allah loves, those that Allah SWT loves, is the triumph of the soul, the triumph of character. It's the triumph of overwhelming mercy. The first Hadith that's in many settings classically is taught to students of Hadith is people of mercy. Allah will show mercy to them. Have mercy on those on earth and Allah will have mercy. The one in the heavens will have mercy on you. The one whose majesty is in the heavens will have mercy on you. So again, reflecting the divine attributes in our own human capacities, those people who are merciful, the all-merciful will have mercy on them. And what and that great triumph is the way to win hearts. And so just as our Prophet Wasallam forgave the Quraysh at Fatimaqah and ultimately they became Muslim, some of them at that time, some a little bit later, but their hearts were won over. And so to the brethren of Yusuf, they were reunited, a reuniting a family. Amazingly, the spiritual triumph is conjoined with a reunion to family. So the Prophet, the blessed Prophet, Joseph Yusuf, his forgiveness is for his brothers. And then he is reunited in love with his siblings and his family. And the Quraysh were the family of the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam extended. It was one tribe. And our Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, they were his Qaum. Although in terms of his message, his Qaum is all of humanity. He is the universal Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. But immediately he had Sillat Al Rahim, he had Rahim, he was a relative of Quraysh. And so the pardoning of them at Fatimaqah was reuniting with family. And so there's so many profound lessons in this that really, you know, so one of the things we can do in this blessed time of Ramadan is to make Toba repentance for all of the times we were unable to forgive any grudges we had in our heart, to ask Allah to forgive us for holding on to any ranker, and to make sure we let go of all grudges on this day, tonight, and in the second half of the blessed month that's approaching now, to let go of grudges and to have a free and open heart. Salamat al-Sadr. One of the great heirs of the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, Rahimullah, he says, There are three salient virtues of the awliya, the saints that Allah SWT loves. Salamat al-Sadr. He says, a heart that is free of ranker and malice and grudges. And Salamat al-Sadr. Generosity of soul. Generosity of hand is to give something of our wealth for good causes to help those people in need. Generosity of soul is to go above and beyond that, to not only give something of our money, but to give something of our overwhelming concern from the heart, from the soul, whether it's time, whether it's energy, whether it's sitting and consoling someone in difficulty, that whatever it might be, generosity of soul. And the third virtue of the saints is to assume the best intentions of fellow man, to assume the best of intentions with the servants of Allah, fellow man, our brothers and sisters, to not assume bad intentions. And so that's the first verse we wanted to highlight. The second one, again related to the great triumph of this great Prophet, peace be upon him, Prophet Yusuf al-Salam, was when he's reunited with his family, and this is verse 101, and Allah Ta'ala says, that he raised his two parents upon upon the throne, and they went down prostrating for his sake. And this was the dream, so he says, and he says, this is the explanation, the interpretation of my dream, my vision from before hand. And my Lord made it true and real, and my and and he, referring to Allah, and he was so good to me, and he was so good to me, when he took me out of prison, and when he brought you all from the desert afterwards, after the shaitan had interfered between me and my brethren, after the devil had sown, dissension, this is amazing. Barely my Lord is Latif, is subtle in his kindness and gentle, and whomever he wills, is omniscient, and of infinite wisdom, that look at his hal, peace be upon him, look at his vision, his vista, his vantage, his perspective. From a worldly material lens, it was tribulation after tribulation after tribulation, he was squeezed and squeezed and squeezed, as a young boy thrown in a well, abandoned by his brothers, lost, taken away from his family, enslaved unjustly, sold to a government minister, whose wife then tries to seduce him, and then he is falsely accused, and then he is imprisoned unjustly, and then he tarries in prison for so many years, and after all of that trauma, he says, what's his reaction, what's his vantage? Allah was so good to me, Allah was so excellent to me, like that all he can see is beauty, peace be upon him, he was ironically, he was given half of beauty in his very person, in his demeanor and appearance, peace be upon him, he was granted half of beauty, but his beauty was not just of form, it was of content, it was not just of khalq, it was of khuluq, it was not just of his appearance, it was his heart, his precious heart, such that he could only see the beauty of Allah, with all of that jalal, with all of that rigor, the Divine Majesty manifesting in tribulation, and Qabd, squeezing him, peace be upon him, he sees the beauty. Imam Qusheri relates in his chapter on Rajah, on hope, that one of the early masters said, hope is to recognize the Divine beauty in the very midst of the Divine rigor, in the very midst of the tribulations that are a reflection of the Divine rigor and Majesty, and he had hope the entire time, and so his optimism overflows, such that the only thing he can see afterwards is the good, wa qad ahsanabi, and so what did he say? Allah was so good to me. If Akhira Jineem in a prison, he didn't say, you know, Allah tested me by putting me in prison, no, he ascribes only the good to Allah, Allah Ta'ala is the Governor of all affairs of the world, he is the Decreer and Master of every atom in the universe, of every circumstance that occurs, but out of etiquette, we attribute just the good to him, the evil, the difficult, we attribute to our own shortcomings or the work of the devil, and he does that because when it comes to the treachery of his brothers, he doesn't say that, you know, he doesn't ascribe that to Allah, and out of etiquette, he doesn't even ascribe it to his brothers, what does he say? Peace be upon him, that, so he only sees the beauty that Allah is the one that took me out of prison, and then Allah is the one that reunited me with my family, he brought you all from the desert, after what? After the devil, after shaytan caused dissension between me and my brothers, so he doesn't even see the harm and the injustice from his brothers as from them, he attributes it to the shaytan, and so, you know, the two dimensions here, the first dimension of his adab, his etiquette, peace be upon him, is that he attributes only the good and the beautiful to Allah because all he sees from, in terms of his vision of his Lord is the good and the beautiful, peace be upon him, and the second dimension we wanted to highlight is that, so he lists the blessings that Allah took me out of the prison, and Allah reunited me with my family, he brought you all back, and then the second dimension we wanted to highlight is even when it comes to his brothers, he does not attribute the wrongdoing to them, he attributes it to the devil, the shaytan came between me and them, la ilaha illallah, this is salam at the southern, these are the greatest hearts, the hearts of the prophets, peace be upon them all, it was the shaytan that caused dissension between me and them, you see because the Allah, when we're in difficulty, when the circumstances of our lives are bearing down on us, Allah's luth is still there, this is what our teachers teach us, this is what the great imams of our tradition taught and bequeathed to us, is that Allah's luth is never absent from the tribulations that afflict us, Allah's luth is never absent, Allah swt his luth is omnipresent, and so we may not be able to detect it, but we trust in Allah that it's there, that Allah's subtle grace is always in the background as it were, and the more we open our hearts to it, the more it will insha'Allah manifest in the forefront because it's there, Allah swt is laqif, and again the great imam ibn atailah he says man danna infikaka luthfihi an qadrihi fa dalika min qusuri nathrihi you know whoever, whoever thinks that Allah's subtle grace is separate and discovered from his, the decrees that cause, that are tribulations, then that's because he is short-sighted, short-sighted in the heart, short-sighted in the heart, and so the great prophet Yusuf says Allah ta'ala quotes him as saying he says he says you know my nurturing, my caring Lord, because his entire life was devotion to Allah, whatever, wherever he was in public or in private, in good times or bad times, he was oriented to Allah swt and so he says Rabbi, verily my Lord, the one that was nurturing me the whole time, you know he was essentially orphaned effectively in terms of the way he experienced his later youth and his then young adulthood, yet he recognized the divine luthf in providing his nurturing and the care and concern of Allah, look at our prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam, he was actually orphaned and he never was distant from Allah, he was never, he was never unmindful or heedless of his Lord, our prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam was always cognizant of Allah swt, these are the prophets are the greatest of examples, peace be upon them all and then he concludes in Allah swt concludes the verse Allah is all knowing and Allah is all wise, whatever we're facing it's not outside of Allah's knowledge and it's not severed from his wisdom, there is a great wisdom, a surpassing astonishing wisdom if we but patiently persevere, we ask Allah to make his people of beautiful opinion of him as a means of recognizing his hidden grace and he has stated in the hadith qudsi on the tongue of our prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam in the words of in the expression of our prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam, I am in the opinion of my servant of me and I am with him when he makes remembrance of me and this is also the state of all the prophets anima sallam and certainly prophet yusuf alayhi sallam, how was it that the people in the prison recognized to even ask him about interpretation of dreams because he was so realized in his remembrance of Allah and the light that emanates from that that the people could see there's something unique about this person and so Allah is with us if we make remembrance of him and then our hearts can have more light to think well of him and when we think well of Allah sallallahu alayhi sallam Allah manifests that hidden lutf what what we see is hidden what's actually there it becomes more concrete for us inshallah that's the promise of our prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam in that sublime hadith and Abu Sulaiman ad-Darani one of the great imams of our tradition said man has sanna danna hubillah faqat fatah allahu alayhi babur rahma whoever beautifies his opinion of Allah then Allah has opened for him the gates of his mercy we ask Allah to make us the people of ahlul quran aladinuhum ahlukaw khasatu ki ar-Rahmeen we ask Allah to make us true heirs of the prophets anima sallam true heirs and inheritors of our prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam we ask Allah to make us people who recognize Allah's wisdom and Allah's subtle grace in our most difficult of times and that in our good times we are full of even more optimism and gratitude al-afu minkum pardon me was was sallallahu alayhi sallam