Stories of The Prophets
Prophet Yaqub (a) & Prophet Yusuf (a)
Yaqub was also
known as Israil.
Israil's children could
see that Yusuf was their
father's favourite. This
made them very jealous.
They became so jealous,
some of them actually
wanted to kill him.
The jealous brothers
finally decided
to throw Yusuf
into a deep well.
They went to Israil, their
father, to ask if they could
take Yusuf out with
them; they said they would
teach him to be a good
shepherd. Israil would
not let Yusuf go because
he thought the others
were planning to do
something bad.
One day Yusuf went to
Israil and said that he
had had a strange dream.
In the dream Yusuf
had seen the sun, the
moon and eleven stars
bowing down to him!
Israil felt that
the dream had a
message, Yusuf was
going to have a
great future. He
told Yusuf not to
tell his brothers
about the dream.
Israil's son were
still thinking of their
plan to kill Yusuf.
They pestered Israil
to let them take
Yusuf with them
to their work.
At last Israil agreed,
but he made them promise
to look after him.
They were so bad they
knew they would break
their promise.
At the end of the day
they asked Yusuf to take
off his shirt. They killed
a sheep and put blood all
over Yusuf's shirt; then they
threw Yusuf into a well.
They went home and
showed the shirt to Israil.
Pretending to be very upset;
they told their father that Yusuf
had got left behind and a
wolf had eaten him!
Israil was very
upset but he
did not believe
the story.
He knew that one
day Allah would
bring Yusuf back
to him.
Poor Yusuf spent the
night in the well.
The next morning, when
someone put the
bucket down the
well to get water,
he sat in the bucket.
The man had to get help
to pull the bucket up.
He was very surprised to see
a boy in it.
The man was a merchant.
The merchant decided
to take Yusuf with
him to Egypt and to
sell him as a slave.
When they arrived in
Egypt, one of the noble
families bought Yusuf.
The man who
bought him told
his wife that they
should take care of
him, as he was a
good-looking child
and they had no
children of their own.
Yusuf became one
of the family.