Prophet Yaqub (AS) – Israel, the Father of Beautiful Patience حضرت یعقوب علیہ السلام – اسرائیل، صبرِ جمیل کے باپ

Yaqub (AS) is one of the few people in history whose coming was announced before his own father was born. When the angels visited Ibrahim (AS) on their way to the people of Lut, they gave Sarah the tidings in one breath: ‘Then We gave her good tidings of Ishaq and after Ishaq, Ya'qub.’ (Hud 11:71). Sarah, a barren old woman, was told not only that she would have a son, but that she would live to see that son's son. Allah describes Yaqub elsewhere as a gift ‘in addition’: ‘And We gave him Ishaq and Ya'qub in addition, and all [of them] We made righteous.’ (Al-Anbiya 21:72). Ibrahim had asked for a righteous child; Allah gave him a grandson beyond his request.

The Quran also gives Yaqub a second name, Israel. In Surah Al-Imran: ‘All food was lawful to the Children of Israel except what Israel had made unlawful to himself before the Torah was revealed.’ (3:93), and in Surah Maryam, among the list of prophets: ‘of the descendants of Ibrahim and Israel’ (19:58). The commentators explain that Israel is a name meaning ‘servant of Allah’ in the language of that people, and that it was Yaqub's name as well, so that his descendants are called Banu Israil, the Children of Israel. The Prophet ﷺ, in a narration recorded by Abu Dawud and others, confirmed this: a group of Jews asked him about the food that Israel had forbidden to himself, and he replied in terms that identify Israel as Yaqub (Musnad Ahmad 2471; its chain is graded hasan).

The Quran narrates nothing of Yaqub's youth. The books of history, drawing on the Torah, say he was born in Canaan with a twin brother, al-'Is (Esau), that he went to his mother's family in Harran, married there, and returned to Canaan with his wives, his children and his flocks. Ibn Kathir reports this but marks it as coming from the People of the Book; the parts of it that attribute deception to Yaqub are rejected by Muslim scholars as unworthy of a prophet. What is established is that he had twelve sons, the eleven whose stars bowed in Yusuf's dream (Yusuf 12:4) and Yusuf himself, and that these twelve became the fathers of the twelve tribes.

Of his wives, the historians say that Yusuf and Binyamin were born to Rahil (Rachel), who died at Binyamin's birth, and the other sons to Layya (Leah) and two maidservants. Again, these names come from the People of the Book and are given for context. The Quran establishes that Yusuf had a full brother (12:59, 12:69) and that the other ten were half-brothers, which is why they say to one another that Yusuf and his brother are ‘dearer to our father than we are’ (12:8).

Allah describes Yaqub's rank in Surah Sad together with his father and grandfather: ‘And remember Our servants, Ibrahim, Ishaq and Ya'qub, those of strength and [religious] vision. Indeed, We chose them for an exclusive quality: remembrance of the home [of the Hereafter]. And indeed they are, to Us, among the chosen and outstanding.’ (38:45-47). He was a prophet who received revelation (An-Nisa 4:163), an imam guiding by Allah's command (21:73), and one whose religion the Quran names as the religion of Ibrahim: ‘And who would be averse to the religion of Ibrahim except one who makes a fool of himself?’ (2:130), followed by the account of what Ibrahim and Yaqub enjoined on their sons (2:132).

These are the foundations of his story: a man promised before birth, named with two names, father of twelve, and chosen by Allah for strength in worship and a heart fixed on the Hereafter. All of these would be tested in the loss of the son he loved most.

The Quran's narrative of Yaqub's life begins in earnest in Surah Yusuf, which Allah calls ‘the best of stories’ (12:3). Its opening scene is a conversation between a father and a young son. ‘When Yusuf said to his father: O my father, indeed I have seen [in a dream] eleven stars and the sun and the moon; I saw them prostrating to me.’ (12:4). Yaqub understood the dream at once. The eleven stars were Yusuf's brothers, the sun and moon his parents, and the prostration a sign of future honour. The commentators note that the dreams of prophets and the children of prophets carry weight, and Yaqub, himself a prophet, read it as a glad tiding and a danger.

His reply shows a father's wisdom: ‘O my son, do not relate your vision to your brothers or they will contrive against you a plan. Indeed Shaytan, to man, is a manifest enemy.’ (12:5). He knew his elder sons. He knew that envy already lived in their hearts, and that a dream of their prostration would turn envy into action. Yet he did not blame the boys outright; he named Shaytan as the enemy who would use their envy. This is the balance of a prophet-father: clear about human weakness, but never cursing his own children.

Then Yaqub explained to Yusuf what the dream meant: ‘And thus will your Lord choose you and teach you the interpretation of narratives and complete His favour upon you and upon the family of Ya'qub, as He completed it upon your fathers before, Ibrahim and Ishaq. Indeed, your Lord is Knowing and Wise.’ (12:6). He saw in his son the next link in the chain of prophethood, and he spoke of Allah's favour as something that had passed from Ibrahim to Ishaq to himself and would pass to Yusuf.

The Quran then reveals the state of the household from the brothers' side: ‘When they said: Yusuf and his brother are more beloved to our father than we, while we are a clan. Indeed, our father is in clear error.’ (12:8). Yaqub's love for Yusuf and Binyamin, the two sons of the wife who had died, was visible, and the ten elder sons resented it. Ibn Kathir comments that a father may naturally feel more tenderness toward the youngest and the motherless, and that Yaqub was not unjust in his treatment; but the brothers interpreted the difference as error, and from that interpretation came their plot.

The brothers came to Yaqub with a request: ‘O our father, why do you not entrust us with Yusuf while indeed, we are to him sincere counsellors? Send him with us tomorrow that he may eat well and play. And indeed, we will be his guardians.’ (12:11-12). Yaqub's answer reveals both his fear and his courtesy: ‘Indeed, it saddens me that you should take him, and I fear that a wolf would eat him while you are of him unaware.’ (12:13). He did not accuse them of intending harm; he spoke of a wolf. The brothers replied: ‘If a wolf should eat him while we are a [strong] clan, indeed, we would then be losers.’ (12:14). Yaqub let him go.

Why did a prophet who suspected danger send his son? The commentators answer that he had no proof of ill intent, that a father cannot refuse his sons forever, that to refuse would have confirmed the brothers' belief that he distrusted them, and above all that Allah's decree was to be fulfilled. Yaqub acted on what he knew and left the rest to Allah. The Quran does not criticise him; it records the moment as the beginning of a long trial that Allah had chosen for him and for Yusuf.

The brothers took Yusuf out to the pastures and, having agreed among themselves to throw him into the bottom of a well rather than kill him outright, they did so (12:15). Then they returned to their father. The Quran describes the scene with devastating economy: ‘And they came to their father at night, weeping. They said: O our father, indeed we went racing each other and left Yusuf with our possessions, and a wolf ate him. But you would not believe us, even if we were truthful. And they brought upon his shirt false blood.’ (12:16-18).

They came at night, when faces are hard to read. They wept, as the guilty often weep. They repeated the very wolf that Yaqub had feared. And they brought evidence: a shirt stained with blood. Ibn Kathir and other commentators relate that Yaqub noticed the shirt was not torn, and said that the wolf must have been a gentle one to eat the boy and leave his garment intact; this remark is found in reports from the early commentators and is reasonable, but it is not in the Quran and should be understood as commentary.

Yaqub's spoken response is one of the most quoted sentences in the Quran: ‘He said: Rather, your souls have enticed you to something, so patience is most fitting. And Allah is the one sought for help against that which you describe.’ (12:18). In Arabic, ‘fa-sabrun jamil’, ‘so beautiful patience’. The Prophet ﷺ's companions and the scholars after them defined beautiful patience as patience with no complaint to people. Yaqub did not rage, did not curse his sons, did not demand a search. He said, in effect: you have done something and dressed it up; I will be patient, and I will ask Allah for help.

This was not naivety. He told them plainly that their souls had enticed them to a deed. He knew his son was not dead at the jaws of a wolf. But he had no power to recover him, and he had nine or ten grown sons standing before him whose guilt he could not prove. A prophet's patience is not the patience of ignorance; it is the patience of one who knows that Allah is watching and that the matter will be resolved in His time.

The years passed. Yusuf was sold into Egypt, served in the house of the minister, was imprisoned, and rose to govern the storehouses of the land, and through all of it the Quran gives no word of Yaqub except the sense of a father waiting. The historians estimate the separation at many years, some saying twenty or more; the Quran does not specify. What it does make clear is that Yaqub's grief did not fade with time. When the brothers later lost Binyamin as well, the Quran says: ‘And he turned away from them and said: Oh, my sorrow over Yusuf, and his eyes became white from grief, for he was [of that] a suppressor.’ (12:84). His eyes turned white, which the commentators understand as the loss of sight from constant weeping; and he was ‘kazim’, one who swallows his grief and does not vent it.

The word ‘kazim’ is the key to Yaqub's character. Islam does not ask the believer not to feel. The Prophet ﷺ wept at the death of his son Ibrahim and said: ‘The eyes shed tears and the heart grieves, but we say only what pleases our Lord.’ (Sahih al-Bukhari 1303). Yaqub wept until he was blind, and his sons rebuked him for it, and still he said only what pleased his Lord. That is the model of beautiful patience: tears are permitted, complaint to creation is not.

Years after the loss of Yusuf, famine struck the lands of Canaan and Egypt. Yaqub sent his ten elder sons to Egypt to buy grain, keeping Binyamin, Yusuf's full brother, at home. The sons stood before the governor of Egypt without recognising that he was Yusuf. Yusuf treated them generously, but told them that they would receive no more grain unless they brought the brother they had mentioned, and he secretly returned their payment in their sacks (12:58-62).

They came home and asked their father for Binyamin: ‘O our father, [further] measure has been denied to us, so send with us our brother [that] we will be given measure. And indeed, we will be his guardians.’ (12:63). Yaqub's answer carries the memory of the first betrayal: ‘Should I entrust you with him except [under coercion] as I entrusted you with his brother before? But Allah is the best guardian, and He is the most merciful of the merciful.’ (12:64). He had not forgotten; but he spoke of Allah's guardianship, not of his sons' failure.

When they found their money returned in their sacks, they pressed him again, and this time Yaqub took a solemn pledge: ‘I will never send him with you until you give me a promise by Allah that you will bring him [back] to me, unless you should be surrounded.’ (12:66). When they gave their word, he said: ‘Allah, over what we say, is Witness.’ A prophet binds his sons with an oath to Allah, not with threats.

Then Yaqub gave them an instruction that reveals how he combined precaution with reliance: ‘O my sons, do not enter from one gate but enter from different gates; and I cannot avail you against Allah at all. The decision is only for Allah; upon Him I have relied, and upon Him let those who would rely [indeed] rely.’ (12:67). The commentators say he feared the evil eye upon eleven handsome brothers entering together, or feared drawing suspicion, and so told them to spread out; but in the same breath he said that his precaution could not avert what Allah decreed. The Quran adds: ‘And when they entered from where their father had ordered them, it did not avail them against Allah at all except [it was] a need within the soul of Ya'qub which he satisfied. And indeed, he was a possessor of knowledge because of what We had taught him, but most of the people do not know.’ (12:68). Here Allah testifies that Yaqub was a man of knowledge taught by Allah.

In Egypt, Yusuf kept Binyamin with him by a plan in which the king's cup was found in Binyamin's sack, and the brothers, bound by their oath, were thrown into despair. The eldest refused to return without him: ‘I will never leave this land until my father permits me or Allah decides for me.’ (12:80). The others went home and told their father that his son had stolen, and that he could ask the caravan they had travelled with (12:81-82).

Yaqub's reply repeated his earlier words with one addition: ‘Rather, your souls have enticed you to something, so patience is most fitting. Perhaps Allah will bring them to me all together. Indeed it is He who is the Knowing, the Wise.’ (12:83). ‘All together’: after losing a second son and with a third stranded in Egypt, he spoke of Allah bringing all of them back. This was not denial. It was hope founded on knowledge of Allah. Then came the sorrow of verse 84, the white eyes, the suppressed grief, and the sons' cruel words: ‘By Allah, you will not cease remembering Yusuf until you become fatally ill or become of those who perish.’ (12:85).

His answer to them is the heart of his story: ‘I only complain of my suffering and my grief to Allah, and I know from Allah that which you do not know.’ (12:86). And then he sent them back: ‘O my sons, go and find out about Yusuf and his brother and despair not of relief from Allah. Indeed, no one despairs of relief from Allah except the disbelieving people.’ (12:87). A blind, bereaved old man, abandoned by his sons' sympathy, sent them to search for a boy they had told him was dead decades earlier, because he knew from Allah what they did not know.

The brothers returned to Egypt, humbled by famine and failure. They said to the governor: ‘O 'Aziz, adversity has touched us and our family, and we have come with goods poor in quality, but give us full measure and be charitable to us.’ (12:88). Yusuf could hold back no longer. ‘Do you know what you did with Yusuf and his brother when you were ignorant?’ (12:89). ‘Are you indeed Yusuf?’ they asked. ‘I am Yusuf, and this is my brother. Allah has certainly favoured us. Indeed, he who fears Allah and is patient, then indeed, Allah does not allow to be lost the reward of those who do good.’ (12:90).

Yusuf then thought first of his father. He gave them his shirt: ‘Take this, my shirt, and cast it over the face of my father; he will become seeing. And bring me your family, all together.’ (12:93). The shirt that had once been brought to Yaqub with false blood was now replaced by a shirt that would restore his sight. The commentators note the symmetry: the garment of the lie and the garment of the truth.

What happened next is one of the signs of Yaqub's prophethood. ‘And when the caravan departed [from Egypt], their father said: Indeed, I find the smell of Yusuf, if you did not think me weakened in mind.’ (12:94). The caravan was still days away, far beyond any natural distance, and Yaqub, blind and in Canaan, said he could smell his son. Those around him, the commentators say his grandchildren or other relatives, answered as his sons had: ‘By Allah, indeed you are in your [same] old error.’ (12:95). They still thought his hope was delusion.

‘And when the bearer of good tidings arrived, he cast it over his face, and he returned [once again] seeing. He said: Did I not tell you that I know from Allah that which you do not know?’ (12:96). His sight returned at the touch of the shirt. Then his words: ‘Did I not tell you?’ This was not a boast; it was a reminder of the lesson he had been teaching his sons all along, that one does not despair of Allah.

Now at last the sons confessed. ‘They said: O our father, ask forgiveness of our sins for us; indeed, we have been sinners.’ (12:97). Yaqub's reply once more showed his character: ‘I will ask forgiveness for you from my Lord. Indeed, it is He who is the Forgiving, the Merciful.’ (12:98). He did not refuse, and he did not pretend their sin was small. Some reports say he delayed the prayer until the last part of the night or until Friday, when supplication is more likely to be accepted; these come from the early commentators and are plausible but not established as revelation. In any case, he forgave, and he promised to intercede.

Then the whole family travelled to Egypt. ‘And when they entered upon Yusuf, he took his parents to himself and said: Enter Egypt, Allah willing, safe [and secure]. And he raised his parents upon the throne, and they bowed to him in prostration. And he said: O my father, this is the explanation of my vision of before. My Lord has made it reality.’ (12:99-100). The eleven stars, the sun and the moon bowed before Yusuf, as Yaqub had foreseen on the day he warned his son not to tell his brothers. The Quran speaks of ‘his parents’; the commentators discuss whether Yusuf's mother was alive or whether this was his aunt, who had raised him, and the Quran leaves the matter open.

The prostration was a greeting of honour permitted in their law, not an act of worship; in Islam, prostration is for Allah alone, and the Prophet ﷺ forbade it to any human (Sunan Abi Dawud 2140, graded sahih by many scholars). Yusuf's speech on the throne acknowledges everything as Allah's doing: that He brought him out of prison and brought his family from the desert ‘after Shaytan had induced [estrangement] between me and my brothers’ (12:100). The father who had lost his son in a lie received him back in truth, with his sight, his sons and his faith intact.

Yaqub lived his final years in Egypt with his sons and grandsons around him. The Quran does not narrate those years, but it preserves the most important moment of his death, not in Surah Yusuf but in Surah Al-Baqarah, in a passage addressed to the Children of Israel and to the Muslims. ‘And Ibrahim instructed his sons [to do the same] and [so did] Ya'qub, [saying]: O my sons, indeed Allah has chosen for you this religion, so do not die except while you are Muslims.’ (2:132).

Then the scene: ‘Or were you witnesses when death approached Ya'qub, when he said to his sons: What will you worship after me? They said: We will worship your God and the God of your fathers, Ibrahim and Ismail and Ishaq, one God. And we are Muslims [in submission] to Him.’ (2:133). On his deathbed, Yaqub did not ask about his property, his flocks or the leadership of the family. He asked a single question: what will you worship after I am gone? And his sons, the same men who had once thrown their brother into a well, gave the answer of believers. Their earlier sin had been forgiven, and the father who had forgiven them now heard them affirm the religion for which he had lived.

The Quran uses the moment to make a point to the Jews and Christians of Madinah, who claimed Yaqub and his sons as their own: ‘That was a nation which has passed on. It will have what it earned, and you will have what you have earned. And you will not be asked about what they used to do.’ (2:134). And then: ‘Or do you say that Ibrahim and Ismail and Ishaq and Ya'qub and the Descendants were Jews or Christians? Say: Are you more knowing or is Allah?’ (2:140). Yaqub's religion was submission to the one God, the same religion that the Quran calls Islam.

As for the detail in Surah Al-Imran that ‘Israel had made unlawful to himself’ a certain food before the Torah (3:93), the commentators relate that Yaqub suffered from an illness, sciatica according to many reports, and vowed that if Allah cured him he would give up the food he loved most, which was camel meat and milk; his descendants then adopted this as a practice. The Prophet ﷺ confirmed the essence of this when the Jews questioned him about it (Musnad Ahmad 2471). The point of the verse is that this prohibition was Yaqub's personal vow, not a law from Allah, and that the Children of Israel had no basis to accuse the Prophet ﷺ of violating the Torah by eating camel.

Ibn Kathir records from the People of the Book that Yaqub, before he died, asked to be buried in the land of Canaan beside his father and grandfather, and that Yusuf carried his body there with a great procession and buried him in Hebron, then returned to Egypt. These reports are historical, not revealed. The historians give his age at death as around one hundred and forty-seven years; this too is from the People of the Book.

Yaqub's legacy is first of all the Children of Israel: twelve sons, twelve tribes, and a line of prophets from Yusuf to Isa. The Quran addresses this nation by his name, ‘O Children of Israel,’ many times, reminding them of the favours given to their father and demanding that they live up to his faith. His legacy is secondly a vocabulary of patience that every Muslim uses: ‘beautiful patience’, ‘I complain only to Allah’, ‘do not despair of relief from Allah’. These phrases have carried believers through bereavement, exile and injustice for fourteen centuries.

The Prophet ﷺ placed Yaqub in the chain of nobility: ‘the noble, son of the noble, son of the noble, son of the noble: Yusuf son of Ya'qub son of Ishaq son of Ibrahim’ (Sahih al-Bukhari 3390). And Allah placed him in the company of those chosen for ‘remembrance of the home of the Hereafter’ (38:46). A man who could smell his son across the desert, who was never deceived by a bloodied shirt, and who asked his children only one question as he died, is a man whose eyes, even when they were white, saw further than anyone around him.