God says in the Qur’an the following:

Indeed, the religion in the sight of Allah is Islam… [Qur’an 3:19]

And whoever desires other than Islam as religion – never will it be accepted from him, and he, in the Hereafter, will be among the losers. [Qur’an 3:85]

In this post-modern world, a prevalent belief is that everything is true in its own way and that you can’t disprove anything. You will hear people say, “Preach your truth,” even if it goes against logic, science, and common sense. It sounds nice. After all, there’s so many beliefs, how can we know which is the truth? And there’s so much violence in the world. Wouldn’t it be better to avoid arguments and just say everyone’s truth is fine? In fact, one theory for the rise of postmodernism is that due to the dark side of modern ideologies such as neo-atheism, people realized that just hating on religion won’t solve anything. 

However, there are a lot of harm and negatives that come with the “everything is true” ideology as well. Let’s take religion as an example. People will say “Every religion is true!” or “Every religion is from God.” When one has that ideology, that’s making A LOT of assumptions about God, the biggest of which is that God sent all those religions and that He’s fine with you practicing any of them.

However, if one takes a step back and simply looks at this logically, one will realize that this does not make any sense. Let’s take Islam and Christianity, for example. The first says the verses above, while the latter says that the way to salvation is through Jesus Christ. God sent religions that contradict each other? Take a monotheistic religion and a polytheistic one. How can there be harmony in those? Will God send a religion that says to worship other imaginary beings?

And let’s think about the concept of Hellfire. Many religions say to follow it or you will go to Hellfire. It sounds harsh, but in fact, it makes complete sense!

Why? Because why else should you follow the religion? Why would, for example, Prophet Muhammad (ﷺ) preach for over 20 years, face persecution, lose his followers and family members, leave his home land, starve, and face death multiple times, only to say, “Hey guys, you don’t need to really follow me. God is fine with all religions”?

Thus, isn’t it only logical that if a person believes in God, he also believes that He sent down one true religion?

Anyone who studies filmmaking knows that every story needs a conflict. Think of any movie you have watched. The main premise is that there is one major conflict that gets resolved within 1-2 hours, and throughout it, mini-conflicts are sprinkled in. Imagine a movie without a conflict. It would not even feel right!

Surah or Chapter Yusuf in the Qur’an has 7 conflicts. They are:

1. The dream Prophet Yusuf (peace be upon him) sees
2. The plot of his brothers
3. Him forced into slavery
4. Seduction by the minister’s wife
5. Conflict with the women
6. Him being imprisoned
7. The king’s dream

And how do all of them get resolved?

1. Prophet Yusuf interprets the king’s dream
2. Yusuf is allowed to be free
3. The women admit their wrongs
4. The minister’s wife also confesses and the scandal gets resolved
5. He is no longer a slave and becomes the treasurer of Egypt
6. The decades-long issue with his brothers gets resolved
7. The dream of Prophet Yusuf plays out in real life

See something in the order? The conflicts get resolved in the opposite order! The definition of poetry!

Now we can ask ourselves – could one man have done this? Think of movies from Pixar for example. They take years and years to make the perfect story. And that’s by a whole team of writers and professionals!

Let’s say fine, one person managed to do it. But when was this Surah revealed? It was after the most difficult time of Prophet Muhammad’s (ﷺ) life – when Khadijah, his wife of 25 years, AND his father-figure like uncle, Abu Talib, both passed away! To take time out that year, with all the grief and social issues going on, yet still make all the intricacies, symmetry, and poetry in the Surah – does it make sense?

• This was taken from a wonderful conversation all about Surah Yusuf. This was at the 54:23 mark, but the entire talk is worth every minute –