Ibisobanuro by'amagambo Umurongo 8 Isura Yusuf - Ibisobanuro mu cyongereza - Dr Waleed bleyhesh Omary - ububiko bwa qor'an yejejwe

Umurongo: 8

إِذۡ قَالُواْ لَيُوسُفُ وَأَخُوهُ أَحَبُّ إِلَىٰٓ أَبِينَا مِنَّا وَنَحۡنُ عُصۡبَةٌ إِنَّ أَبَانَا لَفِي ضَلَٰلٖ مُّبِينٍ

(8) When they said: “Certainly, Yūsuf – and his brother^[2672] – are more beloved to our father than us though we are a hardy band!^[2673] Verily, our father is in clear error!”

[2672] That is, his sibling brother (Benjamin); the conspirators being his half-brothers from a different wife of Jacob’s (cf. Ibn Kathīr, Ibn ʿĀshūr).
[2673] ʿUṣbah (hardy band) refers to a group numbered from ten to forty. It derives from ʿaṣaba, i.e. to tie up tightly together; so ʿusbah denotes a tightly tied bunch (cf. al-Ṭabarī, Ibn Qutaybah, Gharīb al-Qur’ān, al-Sijistānī, Gharīb al-Qur’ān). Thus they pointed out that they were fully grown men, who were of much greater use to a father than were mere children (cf. al-Ṭabarī, Ibn Kathīr, al-Shinqīṭī). This is especially telling if one realizes the secluded location and harsh environment in which Jacob was settled (cf. Aya 100 below), where his household relied only on themselves for protection and provision for themselves and their livestock.
There could also be a deeper and more complex latent reason that sparked the jealousy/envy of these hardy, independent men, which was that they took their fathers’ favouring of Joseph to mean that he was the one singled out for greatness, namely, Prophethood. This explains the drastic measures they proposed to rid themselves of him; no less than manslaughter, though they were indeed righteous (cf. Ibn ʿĀshūr) and directly descended from the most noble human lineage ever.