The Secrets of Love in Surat Yusuf

Uncovering the concept of love and how it animates the entire story of Surat Yusuf

Introduction

There is a particular hadith that has interested me from the first time I heard it as a child, a hadith with such intense depth to it despite its seeming simplicity. I have spent almost thirty years contemplating on this hadith, and, after much thought, I believe that the key to understanding all of reality is imbedded in this one simple tradition:

We were with the Prophet (ﷺ) and he was holding the hand of `Umar bin Al-Khattab. `Umar said to Him, "O Allah's Messenger (ﷺ)! You are dearer to me than everything except my own self." The Prophet (ﷺ) said, "No, by Him in Whose Hand my soul is, (you will not have complete faith) till I am dearer to you than your own self." Then `Umar said to him, "However, now, by Allah, you are dearer to me than my own self." The Prophet (ﷺ) said, "Now, O `Umar, (now you are a believer). (Bukhari)

It’s such a simple - if somewhat peculiar - hadith at first glance. The immediate question one might ask is whether a man can so suddenly grow in his love for another; how - and why - would a person suddenly change how much they loved another? That question is answered, in fact, by asking another, more important question: why does Allah’s Messenger (SAW) choose to compare love for him to love for ourselves and demand the former be greater than the latter? Indeed, it might seem a somewhat obvious answer at first: because the thing you love most in life is yourself; and yet, the full consequences of that notion are rarely investigated.

Perhaps the most powerful psychological investigation of this concept - that of loving another more than oneself - is most cogently articulated in Surat Yusuf. There is one particular moment where the lover, after great struggle and failure, transcends their love for themselves and submits it to their love of the beloved. It comes in a momentous ayah, one in which Yusuf (AS) is vindicated - and, yet, his vindication is not the most important aspect of that entire scene:

“The King ˹then˺ said, “Bring him to me.” When the messenger came to him, Joseph said, “Go back to your master and ask him about the case of the women who cut their hands. Surely my Lord has ˹full˺ knowledge of their cunning.” The King asked ˹the women˺, “What did you get when you tried to seduce Joseph?” They replied, “Allah forbid! We know nothing indecent about him.” Then the Chief Minister’s wife admitted, “Now the truth has come to light. It was I who tried to seduce him, and he is surely truthful. (12:50-51)

To understand the true significance of this moment in the story, and what it tells us about the reality of love and loving, we have to investigate a much earlier scene - the scenes of seduction.

Zulaykha: Lust or Love?

before reading this section, I highly recommend the reader to familiarize him/herself with ayahs 24 - 35 of Surat Yusuf

To read the Quran without inquiring questions is to fish with your hands. True, you can catch fish in a shallow stream; but to truly reach the depths of its waters, you need an instrument. The instrument in reading the Quran is an inquiring question. The question for the scene with Zulaykha (the wife of the minister) is, “was Zulaykha in love with Yusuf (AS), or was she only in lust of him?”

In the first two scenes with Zulaykha, those of the initial seduction and the scene of the women cutting their hands, it is entirely plausible that she only lusted after Yusuf (AS). The final scene, however, the scene in which she reveals her role in the plot, is entirely inexplicable if she were merely in lust of him. The evidence for this is both textual and psychological.

If Zulaykha was only ever in lust of Yusuf (AS), then her actions against him - accusing him of assaulting her and attempting to coerce him into intimacy - make complete sense. She wanted him intensely, and, as a complete narcissist overcome with desire, she was willing to do whatever she had to in order to have him. This interpretation, however, makes little sense when you dive further into the psychology of the revelation and a close reading of Yusuf (AS)’s question.

When the messenger arrives at the prison, Yusuf (AS) sends him back and asks him to question the king about “what happened to the women who cut their hands.” Many interpreters have noted that Yusuf (AS) hides Zulaykha’s involvement through anonymity, some believing he does so to preserve her honor. This interpretation is, with all due respect, entirely incorrect. Yusuf (AS) doesn’t just hide her involvement - he entirely excludes it.

Return to the scene where the women cut their hands. Zulaykha invites all of them to a party and gives them knives and fruit. When they begin cutting the fruit, she calls Yusuf (AS). They are so overwhelmed by his intense beauty that they distractedly cut their hands instead of the fruit while staring at him. In all this commotion, who doesn’t have fruit? Who doesn’t have a knife? And who doesn’t cut her hand?

Zulaykha.

And by framing the question in the exact way that he does, Yusuf (AS) creates a circumstance by which she doesn’t even need to lie in order exclude herself and save herself from embarrassment. Rather, she just needs to stay quiet. But she doesn’t. She speaks, and, in doing so, humiliates herself. This only really makes sense if Zulaykha actually loved - and didn’t just lust after - Yusuf (AS). So why did Yusuf (AS) frame his question as such, why does Zulaykha expose herself, and what does that say about love as an emotion?

To answer that, we have to assume that Zulaykha loved Yusuf (AS), and then we need to answer the question of why someone could love another and yet hurt them so terribly. We need to understand the psychology of Zulaykha.

The Psychology of Zulaykha

What drove Zulaykha to hurt Yusuf (AS) so terribly? One answer is found in the words of the surah itself when the women say, “the minister’s wife is trying to seduce her young slave - love has consumed her.” (12:30) The noblewomen of the city understand that she is indeed in love with him and not simply lusting after him.

But then, why would she go to such lengths to wrong him in two ways: by falsely accusing him first and then threatening him with prison second? Let’s analyze the scenes and understand the emotions she feels.

When she attempts to seduce Yusuf (AS), the two of them race to the door. When they open it, they find her husband about to enter the house. If she, the wife of the first minister of Egypt, is found adulterously with her slave - she could lose everything and be entirely humiliated. Recognizing the situation and how disastrously it could end for her, she panics - and the only way to preserve herself is to accuse her own beloved.

When Yusuf (AS) is vindicated by her own household, word spreads in the city. The chief minister keeps his wife, but she is still humiliated. People begin to gossip, and she loses immense face around the city. She looks like an utter fool: not only did she try to seduce her slave, he rejected her. What an utter humiliation.

Her solution to this humiliation was to show the women that, in fact, she was not crazy for loving her slave - that they would do the exact same as her. And, so, she created a situation in which they would become entranced by him and cut their hands. This itself is quite peculiar. Why did she make them cut their hands? Why not simply show them Yusuf (AS) so that they could acknowledge that she wasn’t crazy?

Because she wanted to humiliate them as well. They could be overwhelmed by his beauty, but they could turn around and deny it the next moment: their social standing would mean that they would deny being entranced by a mere slave. So she created a situation in which they would expose themselves - in which no person could deny to another person that they were all entranced by his beauty.

Then, she turns to her final target - her beloved. Humiliated by a mere slave and imprisoned in his love, she now gives him a choice: become mine, or I will do to you what you did to me. I will humiliate and imprison you.

Yusuf (AS) chooses the latter, and so she does.

Yusuf (AS)’s Real Question and Zulaykha’s Answer

We return now to Yusuf (AS)’s question: why did he exclude her from implication when asking his question, “ask him what happened to the women who cut their hands?” The implication in this question is that Yusuf (AS) will not leave prison until his good name has been restored.

When the women absolve themselves by denying involvement, they expose themselves as simply lusting after - and not loving - Yusuf (AS). They would rather he stays in prison than implicate themselves. This is when Zulaykha has a choice to make - the choice to love Yusuf (AS) more than herself.

For years, she chose her good name, her prestige, her reputation, her position, her power, her status over him. And now, she was faced with that choice in the most dramatic way: does she free him from prison and lift his humiliation by imprisoning herself in her own humiliation? Does she, after all these years, finally choose him over herself?

Yusuf (AS) asks the king what happened to the women who cut their hands. What he’s really doing is asking Zulaykha, “do you actually love me?”

And her answer is, “yes.”

The Reality of True Love

To truly love is to prefer the beloved over ourselves. That means we prefer losing everything we love, everything we have, everything we hold dear, to losing the beloved. Zulaykha loved Yusuf (AS), but she wasn’t willing to let go of her pride, her status, and her position to prove that love. And, so, until she was able to do so in the end, she didn’t truly love Yusuf (AS).

Until we love the beloved more than us, we are willing to go to whatever lengths we need to protect ourselves - even at the cost of giving up and hurting the beloved. We choose our comfort, our peace, our benefit at the cost of the other’s comfort, peace, and benefit.

While this is acceptable to an extent with another human - you should only allow yourself to love completely someone who is worthy of loving completely - it is entirely unacceptable with Allah and His Messenger (SAW). As long as we love ourselves more than we love them, when push comes to shove, we will choose ourselves.

This takes us all the way back to the hadith of Umar ibn al-Khattab (RA). Just like Zulaykha, the Rasul (SAW) gave him a choice: do you truly love me? Unlike Zulaykha, who needed years and a total drama to be able to overcome her love for herself and prefer the beloved over the self - Umar ibn al-Khattab (RA) only needed a few moments. When he realized that it wasn’t enough to love the Rasul (SAW) less than himself, the love for the Prophet (SAW) overwhelmed him. He couldn’t live with that inadequacy. He couldn’t live in a world in which his love wasn’t enough for the Rasul (SAW).

Just like Yusuf (AS), the Rasul (SAW) asked him, “Do you truly love me?”

And, he, too, responded, “yes.”

All of Life is a Proof of Love

This entire concept - the concept of love - embodies the very nature of reality. All of existence is an evidentiary act: it is a question from Allah to His servants, “do you truly love me?” All of existence is designed to force the servant to answer that question through his acts.

Zulaykha thought love was joy, intimacy, and pleasure. What she learned through humiliation and separation was that love is, in fact, the arduous journey to choose the love of the beloved over love of oneself. We are all Zulaykha, and Allah is our Yusuf. Until we are willing to submit our desire for own pleasure to our love for Him, we will never experience the joy of His love.

The soul longs for union with the divine. And that union is only possible through love - a love proved through submission. And that submission is the soul of Islam.