قَالَ يَٰبُنَىَّ لَا تَقْصُصْ رُءْيَاكَ عَلَىٰٓ إِخْوَتِكَ فَيَكِيدُوا۟ لَكَ كَيْدًا إِنَّ ٱلشَّيْطَٰنَ لِلْإِنسَٰنِ عَدُوٌّ مُّبِينٌ
Qāla yā bunayya lā taqṣuṣ ruʾyāka ʿalā ikhwatika fa-yakīdū laka kaydā inna'sh-shayṭāna li'l-insāni ʿaduwwun mubīn
"He said: 'My dear son! Do not recount your dream to your brothers, or they will contrive a scheme against you. Satan is indeed a manifest enemy to man.'"
And one of the finest points of word order in the sūra is here: in the third verse God said "We recount to you" (naḥnu naquṣṣu ʿalayka). In the fifth verse the father lays down a prohibition with the very same verb: "do not recount" (lā taqṣuṣ).
| Verse | Verb | Who | To whom | Ruling |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 | naquṣṣu | God | To the Prophet | It is recounted |
| 5 | lā taqṣuṣ | The father | To his son | Let it not be recounted |
This is a countable repetition within the sūra: the same root, two verses apart, in two opposite directions.
I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the closeness of the two verses: the sūra says that recounting is not always right with its own key word. The place where a thing is to be told and the place where it is not are divided by the same verb.
And the form of the ground is worth recording: the father does not say that the brothers are evil. He states a possibility, and puts the verb into a condition-and-consequence pattern (fa + subjunctive imperfect: "and then they will contrive").
كَيْد — root ك-ي-د: to move towards an outcome secretly and by indirect means; a contrivance. The root was treated in detail at al-Qalam 68/44-47 and al-Ṭāriq 86/15-16. What was recorded there:
In Arabic kayd is not necessarily evil. The Qurʾān shows this plainly: the plan laid in this sūra is called kayd and is ascribed to God (kadhālika kidnā li-Yūsuf, 76).
In the sūra the root kayd occurs in five separate places, and each time a different hand is at work:
| Verse | Expression | Whose |
|---|---|---|
| 5 | fa-yakīdū laka kaydā | The brothers — not yet done |
| 28 | inna kaydakunna ʿaẓīm | The women — the words of the master of the house |
| 33-34 | kaydahunna | The women — in Joseph's prayer |
| 50 | inna rabbī bi-kaydihinna ʿalīm | The women — Joseph's reminder |
| 76 | kadhālika kidnā li-Yūsuf | God — in Joseph's favour |
This is a weave verifiable within the sūra. And I add this as my own reading: the word carries no moral verdict in the sūra — it names a method. What is decisive is who lays it and for what.
The word order of the sentence must be recorded: li'l-insāni has been brought forward. In Arabic bringing forward an element of the predicate conveys takhṣīṣ (particularisation).
And the generality is worth recording: the sentence does not say "an enemy to your brothers" — it says li'l-insān, that is, to the human kind. The father is naming not a person but a working.
I record this as an observation: at the end of the sūra Joseph will arrive at the same place and will attach what happened not to persons but to that same place: min baʿdi an nazagha'sh-shayṭānu baynī wa-bayna ikhwatī (100). The same diagnosis stands at the two ends of the sūra — one from the father's mouth, one from the son's.