وَلَمَّا فَصَلَتِ ٱلْعِيرُ قَالَ أَبُوهُمْ إِنِّى لَأَجِدُ رِيحَ يُوسُفَ ۖ لَوْلَآ أَن تُفَنِّدُونِ
And when the caravan departed [from Egypt], their father said, "Indeed, I find the smell of Joseph [and would say that he was alive] if you did not think me weakened in mind."
Introduction
This is āyah 94 of Sūrat Yusuf (Joseph), the 53rd sūrah in the traditional order of revelation. It was revealed in the Meccan period and sits within Juzʾ 13. Meccan verses tend to address faith, the oneness of God, and the hereafter.
This introduction is a starting point — the community and Bilal will enrich it over time.
Revelation & occasion
- Period
- Meccan
- Order revealed
- 53 of 114
- Surah
- Yusuf (12)
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. "
Tafsir
Hafiz Ibn Kathir
Chains of transmission
Oral — isnād
- ~610–632 CERevelation & memorisation
Received by the Prophet ﷺ and preserved by the ḥuffāẓ (memorisers) among the Companions.
- 1st century AHMutawātir transmissionawaiting curation
Carried by mass-transmission through the generations of qurrāʾ.
- TodayLiving chainsawaiting curation
Continuous ijāzah chains link reciters today back to the Prophet ﷺ.
Verified isnād chains for this āyah will be added by curators.
Written — the manuscript record
- ~650 CEʿUthmānic codicesawaiting curation
The standardised muṣḥaf sent to the great cities (e.g. the Topkapı and Samarqand codices).
- 8th–10th c.Early Ḥijāzī & Kūfic foliosawaiting curation
Surviving leaves in Birmingham, Sanaa, Paris (BnF) and beyond.
- Modern printModern printawaiting curation
The 1924 Cairo edition → today: the standard printed muṣḥaf used worldwide.
A curated chain of manuscript images for this exact āyah — roughly one per century — is coming. Help us source and verify them.
And now — what do you think?
The text, its history and the classical commentary are laid out above. Share your own understanding, ask a question, or reason with others.
Community resources
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