ٱذْهَبُوا۟ بِقَمِيصِى هَٰذَا فَأَلْقُوهُ عَلَىٰ وَجْهِ أَبِى يَأْتِ بَصِيرًا وَأْتُونِى بِأَهْلِكُمْ أَجْمَعِينَ
"'Take this shirt of mine and lay it on my father's face; his sight will come back. And bring me all your family.'"
| Verse | The shirt | Its function |
|---|---|---|
| 18 | Covered in blood | False proof |
| 26-28 | Torn from behind | True proof |
| 93, 96 | Laid on the face | Glad tidings |
And this is worth recording: the first shirt took a son from the father; the third gives the father back his sight. I give this as my own reading; its ground is that the two scenes are built upon the same object.
I record this as an observation about the structure: the sentence tells the return of sight as an arrival. And in verse 96 the fulfilment will be given with a different verb: fa'rtadda baṣīrā — "he turned back seeing". The two verbs convey two different directions: one a coming, the other a returning.
وَأْتُونِى بِأَهْلِكُمْ أَجْمَعِينَ — and the command sets in motion the last movement of the story. Ajmaʿīn — an intensifier: all of them together. And this accords with the hope in verse 83: ʿasa'llāhu an yaʾtiyanī bihim jamīʿā.
The same word (ج-م-ع), once in the father's hope and once in the son's command. This is an overlap verifiable within the sūra.