A DIVINE ORIENTATION The first thing to note is the opening letters of the Surah: Alif-Lam-Ra. If you're a regular reader of the Quran or a student of Quran studies, you know that a lot of Surahs of the Quran are in groups; they're bunched together. So, there are a number of Surahs that have a similar style and you can tell that Allah wants us to consider them connected to each other by the way He opens those Suras. The Suras that open with Alif-Lam-Ra are like that: so this is Surah number 12 and it takes you back to Surah number 10, which is Yunus. It's important to know Surat Yunus is a Makki Surah, and all the way from there to Surah number 23 were all given to the Prophet ﷺ in Makkah. Right before that, Surahs number 8 and 9 are Madani Surahs. So, this is part of a larger group of Surahs that are Makki. Within them are five that begin with Alif-Lam-Ra. So, you find in the beginning of Surat Yunus الر ۚ تِلْكَ آيَاتُ الْكِتَابِ الْحَكِيمِ - 'those are the miraculous signs of the wise book'. So, here in Surat Yusuf we have 'the clear and clarifying book', there it is 'the wise book'. In the 11th Surah, Hud: الر ۚ كِتَابٌ أُحْكِمَتْ آيَاتُهُ ثُمَّ فُصِّلَتْ مِن لَّدُنْ حَكِيمٍ خَبِيرٍ, 'a book whose miraculous signs were stitched together and then they were opened up and explained from the One that possesses all wisdom and has all news.' [rough translations] Then after Yusuf is the only one that doesn't have Alif-Lam-Ra, namely Surat Al-Rad: it has Alif-Lam-Mim-Ra; it has an additional letter: المر ۚ تِلْكَ آيَاتُ الْكِتَابِ ۗ وَالَّذِي أُنزِلَ إِلَيْكَ مِن رَّبِّكَ الْحَقُّ وَلَٰكِنَّ أَكْثَرَ النَّاسِ لَا يُؤْمِنُونَ. Then Surah 14, Ibrahim: الر ۚ كِتَابٌ أَنزَلْنَاهُ إِلَيْكَ لِتُخْرِجَ النَّاسَ مِنَ الظُّلُمَاتِ إِلَى النُّورِ بِإِذْنِ رَبِّهِمْ إِلَىٰ صِرَاطِ الْعَزِيزِ الْحَمِيدِ and Surah 15, al-Hijr: الر ۚ تِلْكَ آيَاتُ الْكِتَابِ وَقُرْآنٍ مُّبِينٍ. So, you've got each one of them opening with Alif-Lam-Ra and then saying something about the Book itself, the revelation itself. It seems obvious we don't know what the letters mean. There are lots of theories about that, but clearly Allah knows best. He chose not to tell us what Alif-Lam-Ra or Alif-Lam-Mim or Kaf-Ha-Ya-'Ayn-Ṣad, etc., mean, but the entire purpose of the book is for us to learn. And the first question that arises is: how do you want me to learn something when I don't even know what it means? What am I supposed to learn from that? Because Allah says عَلَّمَ الْقُرْآن 'He taught the Quran' (55:2). I see this as an orientation, وَاللَّهُ يَعْلَمُ وَأَنتُمْ لَا تَعْلَمُونَ 'Allah knows and you all don't know' (2:216). It's important for a teacher to set limits and say 'This is what I'm going to teach you, and this is beyond the scope of your knowledge at the moment.' Allah is teaching us guidance, so one of the first parts of His orientation to us in these various Surahs is there are some things you are not meant to know, and I would be the only One Who knows. This is very relevant and important for what's about to come. FOCUSING ON THE RIGHT DETAILS So why is that reminder important for us in studying Surat Yusuf? It's important because the story of Yusuf (as) has a lot of details. There's a lot of people involved: he's got eleven brothers and their parents, there's a lineage; there's a map involved, there's Canaan , there's the journey involved, there's the empire, the Egyptians, the minister and his wife... so there are lots of characters and individuals and names and places and information involved. But the Quran is skipping out on a lot of them. Withholding the meaning of Alif-Lam-Ra could be for us to understand: there are some things that you need to know for the purpose of guidance, and there are other things that won't serve that purpose. Allah wants your attention on what will serve the purpose of guidance, no matter how curious other things make you. In Surat Al-Imran (3:7) we learn that there are people that become obsessed with the things they are not meant to know. In a related way, people ask in this story: 'What happened to the minister's wife? Did she get married to him later? What was her name? How old was he when this happened to him?' Why are you obsessed with all these questions that Allah didn't teach you about? Why are you worried about details that aren't clear to you? After all, Allah goes on to say: تِلْكَ آيَاتُ الْكِتَابِ الْمُبِين 'those are miraculous revelations signs of the clear and clarifying book' - so we realize that whatever needs to be clear has been made clear. Whatever He did not make clear was for your own benefit, to teach you that the mandate of guidance comes from Allah not from us. So, that's a remarkable orientation and one of the benefits of the opening of this Surah. THOSE SIGNS There's a question about تلك which I'm translating as 'those' - it sounds like the Signs are far away. That's remarkable because it suggests that the 'Book' intended here is perhaps to the primordial Writ, the word of Allah within a hidden book in Allah’s possession that only the closest angels can access - فِي كِتَابٍ مَّكْنُون لَّا يَمَسُّهُ إِلَّا الْمُطَهَّرُونَ (56:78) - and from it what is learned by Jibril (as) is delivered to the Prophet ﷺ. Now, the word book generally refers to a document in your hands, but the Prophet ﷺ as we know مَا كُنتَ تَتْلُو مِن قَبْلِهِ مِن كِتَابٍ وَلَا تَخُطُّهُ بِيَمِينِك wasn't reading any book before this and you didn't write it with his own hand (29:48). The Prophet ﷺ doesn't have access to books, so why is the Quran calling itself a book especially in the early, Makkan Quran? We learn two things: one is that the origin of the Quran is a much larger Book that contains all of the scriptures of Allah, so it contains صُحُفِ إِبْرَاهِيمَ وَمُوسَىٰ (87:19), the scriptures given to Ibrahim (as) and Musa (as), the scriptures given thereafter to Dawud (as) and 'Isa (as) -- all of it is contained in there along with the Quran, and these are Ayat of that original Book. So, that's one implication. The other is that these words which the Prophet ﷺ is reciting at this point without any paper in front of him is actually a book, and will end up in that written form - that is the destiny of the Quran, as we now have the copies in our hands. Some Mufassirun believe that the word تلك refers to Alif-Lam-Ra. In other words, Alif-Lãm-Ra are those Ayat of the book. Now, why is that important? Because that's as if Allah is saying Alif-Lam-Ra is a group of teachings of the Quran: Surat Yunus, Hud, Yusuf, then Ibrahim, Al-Hijr. [By the way, the exception is al-Ra’d, but its name الرعد happens to start with those letters! That might not be meaningful but it's pretty cool at least.] Anyway, these Surahs clearly are connected, as if Allah is saying that this teaching belongs to this group, these Ayat of that part of the book. That's why Imam Razi and others noted that when Allah calls the book here كتاب, 'kitab' can refer not just to the entire Quran, not just to the Preserved Tablet اللوح المحفوظ, but even to a Surah by itself. There's a big difference between spoken and written speech. Back then, there was no backspace button, no cut or delete or undo. Once it's written (or carved on stones, boards or bones), that's the final version. So, the Quran is claiming that whatever is coming out of the Prophet's mouth ﷺ is the final draft and there's no edit to come. So, that's another implication of Kitab versus Quran. Quran means recital, so Quran is what is heard, Kitab is what is seen and read. So, Allah merges the two when describing our book as Kitab, which refers to the written origin, and then He describes it as Quran, which is the Arabic word meaning recited. So, both of those are unified; the oral tradition and the written tradition are connected together. That's a unique feature of the Quran. Now, I realize that a lot of you are interested in this series because of the story of Yusuf (as), but it's crucial that we learn to humble ourselves to the way Allah teaches. Any wise teacher - and Allah is the wisest Teacher - knows where you need to begin and what you need to hear first before you get to the next lesson, the next lesson and the next lesson. So, the sequence of the Ayat is a divine curriculum. What does He want your attention on first? You'll notice that the first three Ayat say nothing about the story of Yusuf (as), as He wants us to go through this first before we get into the rest of the Surah. THE CLEAR AND CLARIFYING BOOK Now to تِلْكَ آيَاتُ الْكِتَابِ الْمُبِينِ. I’ll get to الْمُبِينِ which is an important word, but one more thing about 'Kitab' that follows from what we said above. The story of Joseph is known to the Jews and the Christians for thousands of years. They've known this story for a very long time. It predates Moses. So, it's a very old story and it's one of the most fundamental stories in biblical tradition for both the Jewish and the Christian people. It is in their book; it's at the end of the book of Genesis. And we believe that as the story was told in the Bible, it was actually revealed originally by Allah ﷻ Himself. So, it's originally revelation. Whatever version of it there is now, we believe the original was actually revelation, the Author of that revelation is Allah, and the origin of that revelation is the ultimate Book that contains all revelations. So, the story that occurs in the Bible was originally in this book, and Allah sent it down to them, but He didn't send down this revelation in Arabic; He sent it to them in Hebrew because the people understood Hebrew. And so, He took the knowledge that was in that book and he transformed it into Hebrew and delivered it to the Israelite people. Now, He’s the same author, same story, but He’s going to now RETELL the story, not simply REPEAT the story. This means that He will talk about the same event, but talk about them in a new way altogether. He’s going to highlight things that were not highlighted in the previous scripture. He’s going to make you think about things that you didn't think about in the previous scripture. This will become clearer in the next Ayah. But now, I want to get to this most important description of the Kitab (and of the Surah and the Quran as a whole) as الْمُبِينِ which I translate as 'clear and clarifying'. I’m using two words to translate one, since both are possible meanings of the word, and each is relevant. Let me explain the difference between the two. 'Clear' describes its clarity in and of itself: so we need to explain what is meant by this for the Quran. 'Clarifying' is the step after that, i.e. it makes other things clear. What we understand from the Quran being 'clear' is that it makes itself known clearly, that it's not the word of a human being. When you hear it, you can clearly tell a person didn't author this. If, you contemplate it, that conclusion will become even clearer. The word clear in Arabic مُبِين comes from the verb أَبَانَ which comes from the origin بَانَ which means to separate: so when you read it, it separates itself from the word of human beings. It’s narrated that a group of Jews came to the Prophet ﷺ and said (paraphrasing): 'Oh, you have scripture, well, how did the Israelites come to Egypt then? Can you tell us?' He's an Arab prophet living in the Arabian Peninsula. His ancestors have been there for many generations; they have no access to the Hebrew Scriptures, and yet Allah is going to give to him clear details of what transpired with this Israelite prophet thousands of years ago, and make it very clear that the Prophet ﷺ has accurate information that was not accessible in normal human ways. So, when they hear him talk about it, it's going to be very clear to them that this book is from Allah. So, it's the fact that he's going to be able to tell them these things that is going to make it clear to them. How else is the book clear? It's clear in its message: it's not confusing, ambiguous or abstract; it's not using words that people can't understand or process. It doesn’t leave you wondering: what's the point of this? What does it want from me? Its message is very clear and straightforward, and it doesn't beat around the bush; it speaks in direct, clear, explicit, depicted terms (11:1) أُحْكِمَتْ آيَاتُهُ ثُمَّ فُصِّلَتْ. Sometimes Allah will talk about something briefly and then He’ll explain it Himself. So, it's very self-explanatory. The word self-explanatory or self-evident even is the word بَيِّن from the same origin آيَاتٍ بَيِّنَاتٍ - they’re clear in and of themselves. So, it's clear in its message: the way it tells a story, the way it describes God, and the afterlife; it's clear in the way it talks about history, and so on. Thirdly, I would add that the Book of Allah is clear in its purpose: it doesn't just come to entertain you with a story. It's also very clear that it's not just there to give you interesting philosophical or theological information. It has demands: it's pulling on its reader and its listener and demanding from them a change within themselves, a change in the way they think, a change in the way they feel, and how they conduct themselves. So, in every sense of the word, the book is clear. Now, I'm going to give you an example to understand 'clarifying'. Imagine that you have a torch/flashlight. A flashlight has a glass in front that helps the light spread. Now, imagine that glass is not clear, but covered in dirt. When you turn the light on, is it able to light up and clarify the path? No. Until the glass is clear, it is unable to clarify; unless it's clear it cannot clarify. I said the book has two qualities: it is clear and it also clarifies. So, what is it going to clarify? The book is meant to clarify the way we should live; the book is meant to clarify the difference between right and wrong; the book is meant to clarify what really happened in history separating it from the lies – because lies are told about many prophets, and the Quran came to set the record straight and make it clear: 'No, that's not what they were like, that's not what they ever did, but THIS is what they were like, this is what the real account is.' So it sets the record straight and clarifies the original purpose. It doesn't just clarify the events of history, but the very PURPOSE of history. Everything is headed towards a purpose: there's a reason why these events occurred; there's a reason they're being talked about. This clarifying role can only happen if it's clear first. OUR RESPONSIBILITY TO CLARIFY Now, this is where the scary part happens for a Muslim… the Quran in and of itself is clear, but Allah made it the responsibility of the Ummah to go out there and clarify it. Take what Allah has given you that is absolutely clear, and go out there and clarify reality for people, إِلَّا الَّذِينَ تَابُوا وَأَصْلَحُوا وَبَيَّنُوا, those who repented, corrected themselves and then went out and clarified (2:160). The book is not going to go on clarifying itself; it could be that some people stumble upon the Quran and find the truth, that happens, but actually the purpose of the Quran and our purpose as an Ummah, the Prophet ﷺ left us with this responsibility, بلغوا عني ولو آية ‘Communicate on my behalf even if it's a single Ayah.' Why did he do that? Because our job was to take this crystal-clear message and take this light and then share it with people. When people are living in darkness and all of a sudden, they get a little bit of light, they can see things for what they really are. So, when believers carry the light of Revelation and share it, they're able to help other people see what they didn't see before, and when they see that, they want to be part of that light too. They'll come to it because they see how much it clarifies and opens up. That's the role of the Quran: both clear and clarifying. My personal motivation for these lecture series, and for the work that I do in Bayyinah, is to be like the people who inspired me, people who dedicated their lives to one thing. They felt that the Quran has not been clarified properly even to the Muslims, not to mention non-Muslims. We have fallen short in this duty. When I first started learning the Quran at around 18 or 19 years old, I suddenly felt like I had been robbed of all the years that went before. I lived in the Muslim world, I'd been praying since I can remember, but I didn't know this Book and what it was talking about. When I first actually went through the Book with my heart and mind engaged, I realized 'Wow, I had no idea what's in this book! This is our book, yet we hardly know it!' It was a wake-up call and I felt the need for it to become clear for myself. After that, I felt the urge to clarify it for others, because what I found is so illuminating for me. On social media nowadays, people share the most random and ridiculous things! But if something really moved you, changed your life, transformed you from inside – wouldn't you want to just tell someone: 'Hey, you know what I just found? You know what this just did for me?' And so, in a sense, every believer that comes to the Quran becomes a living testimonial of what the Word of Allah did for them, and then they share how it clarified things in their lives; and then they want to go out and share with others and clarify their lives.

posts are based on Bayyinah's lecture series. Link to corresponding video: