The question is that in the Holy Quran it is written that when Hazrat Yusuf was thrown in the well, his shirt was taken away by the brothers and it was soaked in false blood, that is the blood of some animals. It was presented to Hazrat Yaqub as if this was the shirt he was wearing and when the wolf hit him the remaining, the remains of the shirt were captured by the brothers and this they presented as proof.
The lady refers to this incident and also the incident of another shirt which was sent to Hazrat Yaqub by Hazrat Yusuf al-Islam. Now the lady, the questioner has completely misunderstood the import of the mention of the second shirt. She thinks that he was wearing two shirts perhaps. One was taken away by the brothers and the other he was still wearing. He preserved it and later on sent the same shirt as a proof. This is not at all the case. It has absolutely nothing to do with this concept.
There is no possibility of any such thing. There is a very beautiful message sent by Hazrat Yusuf to Hazrat Yaqub. A shirt was presented to him, torn and haggard and blood-stained and from which he was made to infer that his son had been eaten up. A whole shirt was sent to him to indicate that the previous shirt was false. It was carrying a completely wrong story. This was the state of shirt which Yusuf was wearing and this is the shirt which was worn by Yusuf. Now a shirt from outside would immediately take the fancy of Hazrat Yaqub back to that incident long long ago and he would remember that a shirt was presented to mislead me.
This shirt has come to direct me into the right thing that my son has not been murdered. So this was the only meaning in the repetition of the shirt. It was a very intelligent move by Hazrat Yusuf and a beautiful way of expressing things. Moreover you know sometimes when you tell about a tragedy in suddenness it can create problems, emotional problems. So if you break the good news too, in some cases it is like breaking the good news too because the effect is bad.
So but by this beautiful way of sending the shirt the news would slowly dawn upon Hazrat Yaqub. He would just start thinking of the message and it will dawn so gradually that it cannot cause any emotional upset. Only the player would be received, no shock. So that’s the beautiful verse of the Holy Quran which tells us that this is the method adopted by Hazrat Yusuf.
