Yūsuf 12:102-104

"This is of the tidings of the unseen that We reveal to you. You were not with them when they agreed upon their affair and laid their scheme. And most people will not believe, however much you desire it. Yet you ask them no fee for it; it is nothing but a reminder to all the worlds."

And when the story ends, the sūra turns into a proof.

This pattern was treated in detail at al-Qaṣaṣ 28/43-51 in the form in which it is repeated three times:

The same pattern is repeated three times across the section: wa-mā kunta bi-jānibi'l-gharbiyy (44), wa-mā kunta thāwiyan fī ahli Madyan (45), wa-mā kunta bi-jānibi'ṭ-Ṭūri idh nādaynā (46). The proof is built upon the source of the knowledge. And the same method was treated at al-ʿAnkabūt 29/48 (wa-mā kunta tatlū min qablihi min kitāb) — there the absence of reading and writing was made the proof.

I rely on that treatment, and I add this verse to the same weave:

And the difference in Yūsuf is worth recording; I give it as my own reading: the proof is attached to a scene, and that scene is the most closed moment of the story — the moment when the brothers took their decision among themselves (verse 15).

That is, the proof is chosen not from a part of the story that anyone could see but from a part no one could see. And the sentence wa-in kunta min qablihi la-mina'l-ghāfilīn in verse 3 is completed here.

This is a link verifiable within the sūra: the sūra opens with a note of unawareness and closes by turning that same note into a proof.

This verse was given for comparison at al-Shuʿarāʾ 26/8-9:

The imperfect (wa-mā aktharuhum muʾminīn) could also have been used; and indeed the Qurʾān does so elsewhere (… Yūsuf 12/103 — wa-mā aktharu'n-nāsi wa-law ḥaraṣta bi-muʾminīn).

I rely on that treatment.

The root ح-ر-ص: to want a thing intensely, to be set upon it. And that the verb is directed at the one addressed is worth noting: wa-law ḥaraṣta — "however hard you press for it".

This limit was treated in many places in the index, and at al-Qaṣaṣ 28/56 a table was made from six sūras (lā tahdī man aḥbabta, wa-mā anta ʿalayhim bi-wakīl, fa-lā tadhhab nafsuka ʿalayhim ḥasarāt …). I rely on that treatment.

And the difference of the word in Yūsuf must be recorded: in the other verses the limit was set upon authority or upon grief. Here it is set upon ḥirṣ: the intensity of the effort.

The pattern is the restrictive in … illā and was treated in detail at al-Najm 53/4. I do not repeat it here.

And that the two clauses stand together is worth noting: no fee is asked (mā tasʾaluhum ʿalayhi min ajr) and the address is unbounded (li'l-ʿālamīn). I give this as an observation: gratuitousness and scope are named in the same sentence.