#071 Emotional Intelligence (Lessons Learned from Surah Yusuf)
Salamun ‘alaykum everyone. Welcome to Amazed by the Quran; a series in which I love sharing with you guys, things I find amazing about the Quran.
And today just a couple of insights that I read about from the story of Yusuf a.s.
When Yusuf had seen a dream about the 11 stars, the sun and the moon and he told his dad; his dad responded;
He said:
1. يَـٰبُنَىَّ : My beloved child,
2. لَا تَقْصُصْ رُءْيَاكَ عَلَىٰٓ إِخْوَتِكَ : don't narrate your dream onto your brother,
3. فَيَكِيدُوا۟ لَكَ كَيْدًا : because immediately they are going to scheme against you pretty badly / they're going to make a pretty elaborate scheme against you
In saying these words, there's a couple of things that come forward. Just because you said a dream, and that dream is even hard to interpret right?
It's not an easy dream to interpret.
Clearly, his brothers don't know how to interpret dreams. So even if he tells the dream, they might not know what it means.
So why is it that they would hear this dream, I said you got to get this kid - what would that be?
This is actually a pretty insightful way of the Quran telling us that there are some people who are psychologically so insecure.
They’re so on the edge, that they may not even understand what you've said to them, what you've shared with them, but if there's even the slightest hint that in what you shared with them, there is something praiseworthy of you, some good came to you, sajda (prostration) was done towards you, or because of you; if that much is there, even if they don't get it, they're gonna go crazy.
They're just on the edge.
They're just waiting to hear something to snap. And their dad knows they're on the edge.
You know a kid won't know that. A kid will say something to his brothers and not think twice about it actually.
Even adults, we don't think twice about it.
In this ayah we are learning to be conscious until you have emotional intelligence. And be conscious of the people around us, especially even within our family who are on the verge of snapping.
They're holding on by a thread; don't say a word.
Forget saying all of it. Don't even give a hint that you're happy or something good came your way, because they don't want to hear you being happy.
Or some good coming your way.
That is going to be enough for them and they are going to be capable of very bad.
The other thing that we're learning in this ayah is, yes, family is something we'll have to be close to. We have to love.
And there are so many teachings in our religion that we have to have a bond with family and be forgiving with family, and close to family; and yet the Quran is also telling us sometimes family can be pretty damaging.
Family can be pretty harmful.
And when they are, you have to be careful. You have to have the sense to know that you need to keep a distance.
Qur'an is not calling you to fight with your family, but the Quran is also not asking you to be naive.
It's not idealistic: just be good to your brother no matter what they do to you. No, no, no, don't tell them stuff.
Sometimes you know your brother has a major temper problem, your uncle has a serious issue; and you feel guilty that you're not opening up to them even though they’re family.
Actually, Quran is relieving you of that and it's saying, ‘No you have to be sensible and you have to know that some people even within your family just don't have the best intentions for you.’
And they're not capable of having a healthy relationship.
And when they're not capable of having a healthy relationship, and you're taking steps back, you're not the one that's supposed to be held accountable.
You're supposed to take your precaution.
He didn't say, “Don't trust your brothers, or don't do this or that,” and that's the next thing that I want to bring to your attention. When he did tell his son this, he says:
لَا تَقْصُصْ - ‘la taqsus’,
In the Arabic language you can say ‘la taqussoa’ (don’t narrate), ‘la taqussi’ (don’t narrate);
‘la taqsus’ is the most elaborate clearly spelled out way when you're going to tell a child to take precaution, you should spell it out.
You should not speak in code; we should be clear and communicating.
“Listen, I need you to be clear, don't tell any of this to your brothers,”
And Yusuf didn't just say, “Why not dad? Why shouldn't I tell him?”
“Well just don't tell them, just trust me okay?” Or he didn't sugarcoat it, “They might not like it,” or “I don't know they might get confused.”
He didn’t even sugarcoat it.
He was actually clear in communicating, “They will make a scheme against you.”
Why would you tell a child; this is like, ‘Isn't that true traumatic, maybe we should kind of hold back and kind of maybe gloss it over a little bit and hold the truth back,’
No, no, by the way it's not like he told him in a hurtful or harsh or angry way, because the verse began with, يَـٰبُنَىَّ ‘Ya bunayya’ : ‘my beloved child/my little boy’, it's like this hug and is holding the kid, “I need you to understand something, don't tell your brothers this, because they will make a plan against you okay? Just don't tell, trust me.”
“Okay dad.” He gets it.
You can't hide family problems from your children.
You have to prepare them for them. When you shield them from it, they didn't have the sense to see it anyway on their own.
They have the sense; they would rather be able to have an open channel of communication with you so they can talk about those family problems.
Pretending that everything is perfect doesn't help them.
It just creates a block, and they just know we don't talk about that stuff. And they keep it pent up inside, and it makes things worse.
It just makes things worse.
And so in just this one little phrase (12:5), we're learning so much about how we're supposed to communicate with our children, and how we're supposed to deal with sometimes harsh realities in our families.
May Allah help our family situations, and may Allah especially make us the parents and the elders in our families good at communicating in a healthy, clear and transparent way with our children.