12:4 Behold, Yūsuf said to his father: “O my Dad! surely I have seen eleven stars and the sun and the moon— I have seen them making obeisance for me.”

12:4 The particle idh is occasionally used to draw reader’s attention to the subsequent event, primarily when there is a sudden change in the central theme of the story or when something significant is being described. Commentators translated the particle variously to mean ‘lo!’, ‘behold!’, ‘now’ etc. Allāh showed Yūsuf a prophetic dream about events to follow in his life in a manner that he did not understand at that point, however, as the sūrah would unfold, the meaning of the dream would become clear. Many commentators translated li sājidīn to mean ‘prostrate to me’, which echoes biblical thought (Gen. 37:9); whereas, the meaning is prostrate for me. A prophet of Islam would not teach anybody to perform obeisance to a man, an act considered blasphemous in the religion. As will be seen in v. 100, the eleven stars and the sun and the moon will make obeisance to Allāh for the cause of Yūsuf.