Asbab Al-Nuzul by Al-Wahidi

Asbab Al-Nuzul by Al-Wahidi — Asbab Al-Nuzul by Al-Wahidi

Go with this shirt of mine and cast it upon the face of my father so that he may come to seeing. Joseph said, " Take my shirt to Jacob, for his pain has not ceased from the time he saw the shirt stained with the wolf's blood. The balm will also be my shirt. " When they took the shirt from Egypt, the morning breeze was commanded to take the shirt's scent to Jacob's nostrils so that, before Joseph's messenger could give the good news, he would receive it from the Real's mes- senger and recognize the Real's perfect gentleness and favor toward him. According to the tasting of the recognizers, this is the divine breeze that wanders furtively around the world to the doors of the breasts of the faithful and the tawḤīd-voicers to see where there may be a limpid breast and an empty secret core in which to dwell. Her love came to me before I knew love- it came across a carefree heart and took possession. To this alluded the Prophet: " Surely your Lord has breezes in the days of your time, " and so on. As for Jacob, this generosity was shown to him by means of passion for Joseph. Beneath this lies a magnificent secret. Its explanation is that contemplating Joseph for Jacob was by means of con- templating the Real. Whenever Jacob saw Joseph with the eyes of his head, he was gazing on the Real in contemplation with the eye of his secret core. So, when he was veiled from contemplating Joseph, his heart was also veiled from contemplating the Real. All of Jacob's anxiety and grieving was because of the loss of the contemplation of the Real, not the loss of companionship with Jo- seph. His longing and lamenting at separation from Joseph was because he had lost his mirror. He did not weep for the mirror itself, but for his heart's intimate, which he no longer saw. He burned because of losing that. Hence, on the day when he saw him again, he fell down in prostration, for his heart was contemplating the Real. He was prostrating before the contemplation of the Real, for none other than God is worthy of prostration.

Asbab Al-Nuzul by Al-Wahidi — Asbab Al-Nuzul by Al-Wahidi

Their father said, " Surely I find Joseph's scent. " The wonder is that the bringer of the shirt found nothing of that scent, but Jacob found it at the dis- tance of eighty farsakhs. For that was the scent of passion, and the scent of passion blows only on the passionate. Moreover, it does not always blow. As long as a man has not been cooked by passion and pounded by the trial of passion, the scent will not blow on him. Do you not see that at the beginning of the work and the outset of the story, when Joseph was taken away from him, the first stage was not reached when they threw him into the well. Jacob had no awareness of this and caught no scent. Finally, at Canaan, he reported about Joseph's scent: " Surely I find Joseph's scent. " It is said that in the House of Sorrows, Jacob wept a great deal every dawn. Sometimes he lamented miserably, sometimes he wailed at his abasement, sometimes he opened the journal of passion and began the chapter on passion. Sometimes he put his head on his knees, sometimes he placed his face in the dust, his two hands raised in supplication. Sometimes he recognized Joseph's scent from the dawn wind and said with the tongue of his state, " The wind at dawn brings your scent, my dear- I am the dawn wind's slave in the tracks of your scent. " Thus it is that on the day of relief the morning breeze brought the scent of Joseph to Jacob and brought him into proximity. This is the custom of the lovers: asking in the lands, conferring with ruined encampments, and sniffing news from the winds. In this meaning someone sang, " I will let the winds guide me to your scent when they blow from your direction And ask them to carry my greetings to you. Respond to me if they come one day. "