And she said: {"Come hither!"}1 meaning: I am a sincere handmaid to You, so make Yourself known to me from Yourself, by Yourself, without an intermediary. Our Master—exalted be his glory—said: {"God forbid!"} (Ma'adh-Allah). "God forbid" here is the Name; meaning: he is, in My view, too great, too majestic, and too magnificent for you to know the reality of his status, for it is a status whose reality is known by none but Me, since I am his Meaning. Regarding this are the words of the Almighty: {Indeed, those who disbelieve in God and His messengers and wish to discriminate between God and His messengers and say, "We believe in some and disbelieve in others," and wish to adopt a way between that}2—meaning they seek to have an isolating intermediary between the Meaning and His Veil, making it a path to denial; {those are the disbelievers in truth}.
{He said, "God forbid! Indeed, he is my Lord"}3. Do you not see the words of Abu al-Khattab—peace be upon him—when he said: "I am the God who is 'deified' (al-ma’luh) by divinity"—meaning: I am the God who is made a god by a God. This is the most wondrous place our Lord Yusuf—exalted be his glory—spoke in this surah, and his indication toward his Name is in magnification of his status from Him. How could it not be so, when he is His very self, His secret, and His Veil? {He has made my stay honorable}4 meaning my Oneness and my Recognition, since he is the Outward and I am the Inward; he is the Speaking and I am the Silent. "He has made my stay honorable"—meaning the best of My houses in worship of Me, in delivery from Me, and the intermediary between Me and My creation.
Another aspect: "Indeed, he is my Lord"—meaning: he raised (rabba) for Me the Call for which I appointed him, and no cutter cut him off nor did any preventer prevent him. How could it not be so, when I have made him the Supreme Name and the Most Merciful Lord?