Yūsuf 12:80-82

"When they despaired of him they withdrew to confer in private. The eldest of them said: 'Do you not know that your father took a pledge from you before God, and how before this you failed in your duty regarding Joseph? I shall not leave this land until my father gives me leave, or God judges for me. He is the best of judges. Return to your father and say: Our father! Your son has stolen. We bore witness only to what we knew; we were not keepers of the unseen. Ask the town we were in and the caravan we came with; we are telling the truth.'"

The construction was cited at al-Mujādala 58/7 in the treatment of the concept of najwā:

When Joseph's brothers could not decide, "they withdrew to confer among themselves" — خَلَصُوا۟ نَجِيًّا (Yūsuf 12/80). The verb is khalaṣū: they drew off, they separated. The verb of withdrawing is used together with the word najiyy.

I rely on that treatment.

نَجِيًّا — root ن-ج-و: to be saved; and to speak in secret. Najwā — speaking in a whisper. Although the word here is in the accusative as a ḥāl and comes in the singular, it points to a plural — in Arabic the faʿīl pattern is sometimes used like a collective noun.

And this may be compared with verse 15 of the sūra: there too they had come together and taken a decision (wa-ajmaʿū an yajʿalūhu fī ghayābati'l-jubb). Both are scenes of closed consultation.

And this sentence is one of the clearest expressions tied to the sūra's axis of knowledge.

The work of the sentence must be recorded: the brothers explain how the pledge they gave came to be broken — and the explanation is a declaration of a limit: "we were not keepers of the unseen."

I record this as my own reading, and its ground is verse 64: the father had said fa'llāhu khayrun ḥāfiẓā. Now the sons declare their own limit using the same root: mā kunnā li'l-ghaybi ḥāfiẓīn.

The same root three times, in three different positions. This is a countable weave within the sūra, and it shows a line of development: from claim to admission.

And here there is a figure of speech, one of the classic examples of the lexicographers: wa'sʾali'l-qarya — "ask the town". What is meant is the people of the town.

In Arabic this is called majāz mursal (metonymy), and in such usage there is a ḥadhf (an ellipsis): wa'sʾal ahla'l-qarya. The lexicographers count this verse the best-known example of the rule.

And this is worth recording: two things are named together in the same sentence — a settled place (the town) and a moving body (the caravan). That is, the testimony is grounded on two separate sources.

And in the eldest brother's words there is a measure worth recording: he resolves not to leave, and he sets two conditions — the father's leave or God's judgement.

I give this as an observation: the pledge given (mīthāq) keeps its weight. And the way out is sought not in breaking the pledge but in obtaining leave from the one to whom it was given.