قالوا تَاللَّهِ لَقَد عَلِمتُم ما جِئنا لِنُفسِدَ فِي الأَرضِ وَما كُنّا سارِقينَ
They said: ‘By Allah! You certainly know that we did not come to make trouble in this country, and we are not thieves.’
EXEGESIS
Tallāhi (by Allah) is an oath and has the same meaning as wallāhi.
Nufsida (make trouble) derives from fasada, which means to become bad, rotten, decayed, corrupt, and unsound.[1] Fasada al-ṭaʿām means that food was spoiled.[2] Its verbal noun, fasād, commonly defined with terms such as corruption, decay, depravity, immorality, and mischief, is explained by Rāghib as the exiting of a thing from moderation so that it becomes too little or too much,[3] or in Rāzī’s definition, it is to spoil a thing so that it is no longer useful.[4]
EXPOSITION
They said: ‘By Allah! You certainly know that we did not come to make trouble in this country’: the brothers of Prophet Joseph (a) said these words, pointing out that this was not the first time they had visited Egypt, and they had not caused any trouble before.[5]
And we are not thieves: more literally, this could be translated as ‘we have never been thieves’, meaning we have never done such things and have no such reputation or past record.
REVIEW OF TAFSĪR LITERATURE
Ṭabarī relates an opinion claiming that the reason why the brothers claimed that You certainly know that they did not have evil intentions was because they had returned the money that Prophet Joseph (a) had put back in their saddlebags.[6] As one can see in the next section, this is based on the Biblical narrative.
Balkhī rightly criticises this, saying that there is no evidence of that. On the contrary, when they opened their bags they were quite happy to get their money back, exclaiming gleefully: Father, what [more] do we want?! This is our trade goods, restored to us! (verse 65).[7]
INSIGHTS FROM OTHER TRADITIONS
- They said to him, ‘Why does my lord say these words? Far be it from your servants that they should do such a thing. Look, we brought back to you from the land of Canaan the money that we found in the top of our sacks. Why then would we steal silver or gold from your lord’s house?’[8]
[1] Hans Wehr, f-s-d.
[2] Tibyan, 6/172.
[3] Raghib, f-s-d.
[4] Razi, 2/306.
[5] Tabrisi, 5/386; Baghawi, 2/504.
[6] Related in Tabari, 13/15.
[7] Tibyan, 6/172.
[8] Genesis 44:7-8.