Yūsuf 12:111

La-qad kāna fī qaṣaṣihim ʿibratun li-ūli'l-albāb · Mā kāna ḥadīthan yuftarā wa-lākin taṣdīqa'lladhī bayna yadayhi wa-tafṣīla kulli shayʾin wa-hudan wa-raḥmatan li-qawmin yuʾminūn

"Assuredly, in their stories there is a lesson for those possessed of understanding. This is no invented tale, but a confirmation of what came before it, a setting out of everything in detail, a guidance and a mercy for a people who believe."

And the strongest textual datum of the sūra is here. I announced it at the beginning of the sūra; now I complete it.

The subject of the sūra and the close of the sūra meet in one root:

This is not an interpretation: the two words are one root, and both are in the same sūra.

The analysis of the root was carried out at al-Ḥashr 59/2, al-Nāziʿāt 79/25-26 and al-Muʾminūn 23/21-22, and I relied on it at verse 43. What was recorded there:

The common core of the root: to pass from one bank to the other. ʿUbūr — crossing over; maʿbar — a crossing-place; ʿibāra — the speech that passes a meaning from one mind to another; taʿbīr — the passing of a dream from image to meaning; ʿabra — the tear that spills from the eye. To take a lesson is to make the crossing between these two banks: This bank: the thing happened to them, and I am watching. The other bank: the same could happen to me; is what carried them there in me as well? An event by itself is not a lesson. The lesson emerges when one crosses from the visible face of the event to its invisible one.

And now the whole of the sūra can be seen. I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the words in three separate verses:

The sūra tells of the same work on three separate planes, and all three are tied to one of the same two roots:

That is, the sūra does the same work three times: to cross from a surface to a depth. And what is asked of the reader is that he do to the story what the hero of the story did to the dream.

This is the place where the form and the content of the sūra meet, and it is a datum of the text; the link I have drawn is mine.

And a second link closes as well: the word qaṣaṣ occurs here for the second time after verse 3.

The sūra opens with one root and closes with the same root. And something like the frame that al-Qaṣaṣ builds around the root ع-ل-و is built here around the root ق-ص-ص. This is a countable repetition within the sūra.

And the pronoun must be recorded: qaṣaṣihim — "their stories", in the plural. That is, the sūra speaks of the story not of a single person but of all the persons named — indeed in verse 7 it was said fī Yūsufa wa-ikhwatihi.

The root ل-ب-ب: the pith of a thing, its kernel. Lubb — what is left of a fruit when the husk is thrown away. And the lexicographers record a difference between ʿaql and lubb: lubb is the pure and working state of the intellect.

And the choice of the word is worth noting; I give this as my own reading: the image of the root is exactly the distinction of husk and kernel. And ʿibra too is the crossing between the visible and the invisible. The two words tell the same work with two different images: one a crossing, the other what lies beneath the husk.

The construction also occurred at Ṣād 38/41-44 (wa-dhikrā li-ūli'l-albāb).

And this accords with verse 7: there the addressee of the story was li's-sāʾilīn (those who ask). Here it is li-ūli'l-albāb (those possessed of understanding). In both verses the yield of the story is tied to what the reader brings.

And the word order of the sentence must be recorded: ḥadīthan is indefinite. "A tale of the kind that gets invented" — that is, it is rejected as a class.

And the word ḥadīth is the singular of the word in the sūra's key construction: taʾwīlu'l-aḥādīth.

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the same word in the two places: throughout the sūra aḥādīth meant events to be interpreted; at the close the same word is used of the narrative itself. That is, the narrative too is a ḥadīth to be interpreted.

ي-ف-ت-ر-ى — root ف-ر-ي: to cut and shape a thing; to slit a hide. Iftirāʾ — to invent; in the root of the word there is the shaping of a thing to one's own liking.

And after the negation four positive qualities are counted:

تَفْصِيل — root ف-ص-ل: to separate, to open a space between. Faṣl — a division; mafṣal — a joint. So tafṣīl: to separate what has been mixed together and show it item by item.

And the word is from the same root as the verb in verse 94: wa-lammā faṣalati'l-ʿīr — "when the caravan set out". The same root, one a physical parting, the other the separating out of meaning. This is a countable overlap within the sūra.

لِّقَوْمٍ يُؤْمِنُون — and a last note: the guidance and the mercy are bounded by a qualifying clause.

I record this as an observation, and its ground is the other two restrictions of the sūra: li's-sāʾilīn (7), li-ūli'l-albāb (111), li-qawmin yuʾminūn (111). Three times the yield of the story is tied to a condition — and all three conditions lie on the reader's own side: to ask a question, to put the intellect to work, to believe.