وَتَوَلَّىٰ عَنْهُمْ وَقَالَ يَٰٓأَسَفَىٰ عَلَىٰ يُوسُفَ وَٱبْيَضَّتْ عَيْنَاهُ مِنَ ٱلْحُزْنِ فَهُوَ كَظِيمٌ
"He turned away from them and said: 'Alas for Joseph!' His eyes went white with grief, and his heart was full."
The root أ-س-ف: intense grief; and anger. The word was treated at al-Zukhruf 43/54-56 (fa-lammā āsafūnā), and this verse was cited there:
The Qurʾān uses the word of Jacob: yā asafā ʿalā Yūsuf (Yūsuf 12/84) — there it means grief. And of Moses: ghaḍbāna asifā (al-Aʿrāf 7/150; Ṭāhā 20/86) — there it comes together with anger.
And the vocative pattern must be recorded: yā asafā — the final alif is a transformation of the first-person possessive yāʾ (yā asafī). In Arabic this is called nidāʾ al-nudba (the vocative of lament), and it is built as an address not to a person but to a feeling.
That is, the sentence calls out to the grief itself: "O my grief!" In Arabic this is one of the most concentrated ways of expressing pain.
ٱبْيَضَّتْ — root ب-ي-ض, Form IX (ifʿilāl). This form was dealt with at al-Zukhruf 43/17-18:
In Arabic Form IX (ifʿilāl) is used almost exclusively for colours and defects, and the lexicographers record that this form conveys a colour settling upon a person. The pattern conveys not a passing change but a colour that settles.
I rely on that treatment. In al-Zukhruf the same form was used for muswaddā (turning black); here it is ibyaḍḍat (turning white). The same pattern, two opposite colours.
And the cause is written plainly: mina'l-ḥuzn. That is, the verse ties a bodily change to a feeling.
I record this as an observation: the Qurʾān gives grief here not as an abstract state but as a visible trace. And this note was entered at al-Ḥadīd 57/22-23:
The Qurʾān records the grief of the prophets and does not blame it: Jacob's grief for Joseph (Yūsuf 12/84), and the words said to the Prophet, "do not grieve over them" (al-Naḥl 16/127) — which shows that the grief was there.
The root was analysed in detail at al-Qalam 68/44-47 (makẓūm) and tabulated with the difference of pattern at al-Zukhruf 43/17-18. It was also treated at Ghāfir (al-Muʾmin) 40/18-20 (kāẓimīn). What was recorded there:
The concrete sense of the root: kaẓama'l-qirba — he filled the waterskin and tied its mouth. That is, a vessel filled up and stopped at the mouth. Its derivatives: كَظِيم (kaẓīm) — one who has buried his sorrow within; كَاظِم (kāẓim) — one who swallows his anger (al-kāẓimīna'l-ghayẓ, Āl ʿImrān 3/134); كِظَامَة (kiẓāma) — the tie that closes the mouth of a thing. And now the picture of the word is complete: a skin full to the brim with its mouth tied. The pressure inside is there; but it cannot get out. The difference of pattern (al-Zukhruf): makẓūm is a passive participle — suppressed, stopped from outside; kaẓīm is an intensive faʿīl — one who stops himself up from within. That is, the mouth of the one who is makẓūm is tied by another; the one who is kaẓīm ties his own mouth.
And what belongs here is this, which I give as my own reading, its ground being the contrast between the two halves of the verse:
| Half | Expression | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| The first | Yā asafā ʿalā Yūsuf | What comes out — an audible lament |
| The second | Fa-huwa kaẓīm | What is held within — the image of a skin with its mouth tied |
The same verse records both the letting out and the holding in. And the two do not contradict: the kaẓīm pattern conveys that the mouth of an overflowing vessel is tied — that is, there is pressure inside. A sound has come out; but what came out is not everything that is within.
And this completes the note on ṣabr jamīl: a beautiful patience is not the absence of grief. Indeed the same man will say so himself two verses later: innamā ashkū baththī wa-ḥuznī ila'llāh (86).