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Joseph The Righteous (PUH)
Joseph was the beloved son of Jacob, and almost he could not leave him alone. Joseph was a man of nice face and shape, and so his father prefered him over his other children and even over himself and took care of him so much beyond the known limits, and that was the reason for his brothers envy and for his troubles since he was a kid and for troubling his father with great matters such as being away from him for almost twenty years at least. The children of Jacob saw how Joseph got all the attention of their father and so they got mad about it and they were in young ages so they plotted against him and said to their father: O our father! Why wilt thou not trust us with Joseph, when lo! we are good friends to him ? Send him with us to-morrow that he may enjoy himself and play. And lo! we shall take good care of him(Yousof:11-12). Then Jacob felt some danger from them but for he was afraid on Joseph against them he did not show anything and tried hardly to keep his feelings and so he answered them: Lo! in truth it saddens me that ye should take him with you, and I fear less the wolf devour him while ye are heedless of him(Yousof:13), and God knows that he was afraid from them and not the wolf, and their answer to him did not contain any covenant or a promise to take care of him and did not make a way for their father to disaprove so they said: If the wolf should devour him when we are (so strong) a band, then surely we should have already perished(Yousof:14). It is mentioned that their land had some lions and at that time the lions were so beasty. They said that Jacob saw in his dream that ten wolves surrounded Joseph to kill him, and then one wolf of them jumped to protect him, and then as if the ground was cut into half and Joseph got into it deep inside then went out after three days, and for this he said: I fear less the wolf devour him, and in fact that was a lesson from him towards them but he did not feel it, for it is mentioned that at that time they did not know that a wolf can devour a human, and as attributed to the prophet (PUH) that he said: do not teach how to lie and so you lie then, for the children of Jacob did not know before that the wolf can devour a human until their father told them so and so then they lied.
God had revealed in the chapter of Yousof in His holy book explanations about His servant Joseph and whatever He revelaed upon him from troubles and tests and virtues and fortunes, so He gave him what no one of the prophets did have, and tested him as no one before, so said God in the chapter of Yousof speaking to His beloved the prophet (PUH): We narrate unto thee (Muhammad) the best of narratives in that We have inspired in thee this Qur'an, though aforetime thou wast of the heedless(Yousof:3), so stories come from quran and other ways, and there is a difference between its stories and stories brought by other sources, and God called it "best narratives" for it reached the ultimate level of literature and rhyme with harmony, and it was been narrated in the best of ways because it contained the wonders and sermons, and  because quran mostly tells the tidings of old nations and of coming nations and tells what servenats may need for their after-life so all of that was to be mentioned in the best rhyme and best order, and because the story of Joseph contains the jokes and wonders with benefits as no other story did for its details in a wide manner, it did not let a question to be in the mind of any one that might be asking about him, so then God said: When Joseph said unto his father: O my father! Lo! I saw in a dream eleven planets and the sun and the moon, I saw them prostrating themselves unto me. He said: O my dear son! Tell not thy brethren of thy vision, lest they plot a plot against thee. Lo! Satan is for man an open foe(Yousof:4-5), and they say the reason for revealing this chapter in quran was that some disbelievers in Mecca met some jews and they nagotiated about the condition of Muhammad (PUH) and so one of jews said: ask him (the prophet) why the family of Jacob moved from the lands of Shem to Egypt and ask him about the story of Joseph, and so the chapter was revealed. What is apparent from the talk of Jacob to his son Joseph which is "Tell not thy brethren of thy vision" is that they did not know about his dream and neither about telling their father about this dream but all of that happened without their knowledgement.
What is mentioned in Torah is that all of that happened while his brothers were with him and then his father rebuked him for telling the dream in front of them and said to him: me and your mother and your brothers may prostrate for you, as for mocking at him, and this is the first point of difference. Then what is appointed by quran and its interpretations is that they asked their father to send Joseph with them by saying: Send him with us to-morrow that he may enjoy himself and play. And lo! we shall take good care of him(Yousof:13), and in Torah is that his father sent him with them by his own will to check their manners and acts and then tell his father about what he saw, and for this Torah claimed that he was seventeen years old, but the point is that anyone in this age would be not be under such action as his brothers did to him, and it is attributed to Torah: when he went with them and they went far away with him and said: here comes the one of dreams wearing his stripped garment (and it was a garment given to him by his father) and then they plotted a plot and they decided to throw him in the well after getting his garment from him and never hurt him and tell their father that some devoured him.
They said that when he was thrown into the well he was ten years old, and some said that he was twelve years old and some said nine and seven, and he met his father again and he was forty years old. When they wanted to throw him in the well they said to him: take off your garment, so he cried and said: O brothers, take off my beholdings?! Then one of them got a knife towards him and said: if you do not take it off I will kill you, so he took it off and they got him down into the well and went away, then Joseph said while he was in the well: O God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, have mercy upon me for my weakness and youth, and then a caravan came from Egypt and its traders sent someone to get them water from the well, and when he put the bucket down into the well, Joseph cought it tightly and when the man pulled the bucket back he felt the heaviness, so then he looked and saw a boy hanging on it with a beautiful face that he never saw before, so he left him and went back to his people and said: this is a boy, we can get him out and sell him and make a trade out of him. His brothers were watching at that time for who will take him, and some of them used to give him food while he was in the well and guard the well as well and never left him alone in any day as it is most famously announced, and when the caravan passed by the well they were there beside the well and when the traders insisted on taking him, his brothers came and said: this is a servant for us and he escaped away and we are seeking him.
Then the brothers of Joseph said to him: if you did not admit that you are a servant for us we would kill you with carelessness, and when he knew the situation very well he accepted that without thinking, so then the caravan's traders said to Joseph: what do you say about what they are saying? He said: I am a servant for them, then the traders said to the brothers of Joseph: would you then sell him to us? They said: yes, and so they bought him from them and decided to sell him in Egypt, and they took him for a cheap price, and as attributed to Al-Ridhâ (PUH) that the price was twenty coins and it was the price of a hunting hound if it experienced some hunting. It is apparent that they had him from their father as it had been told in quran and they went with him and decided to get him into the well. Then they came to their father at night crying, and said: O father, we went to race and left Joseph beside our things and the wolf devoured him and you won't believe us even if we were truthful, and got his garment with a false blood, and this phrase "you won't believe us even if were were truthful" towards their father is because they felt that they were in the place of doubt for their father, and they know that and they know that their father's intuition about what evil they were planning for their brother was not wrong, and their deed was not hidden from him and for this when he took the garment from their sinful hands and he did not find any tearing in it he said to them: how merciful is this wolf that devoured my son Joseph without touching his garment. He said that for his sorrow for Joseph and for mocking at them and their lies, and when he knew clearly their situation he said: Nay, but your minds have beguiled you into something. (My course is) comely patience. And Allah it is Whose help is to be sought in that (predicament) which ye describe(Yousof:18).
As attributed to Al-Bâqir (PUH) in general about the interpretation of God's saying: And they came with false blood on his shirt(Yousof:18), is that they slain a ram over his shirt and polluted it with blood and said to each other: we shall say to our father that the wolf devoured him, and when they did so, Levi said to them: O people, do you think that God hide such tidings away from his prophet Jacob? So they said: what to do? He said: we shall go and wash up and pray together and ask God to hide this from his prophets for He is Generous, and so they did, and the regulations of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob was to pray as a group only if there are eleven men to do so, and so one stand up as a leader and ten behind him to pray, so then they said: what to do now and we do not have a leader? Because all of them were ten only, then said Levi: we shall make God our leader, and then they prayed and weeped and asked God to never tell his prophet Jacob about what they did, and then they came to their father weeping with his shirt polluted with blood and said: O our father! We went racing one with another, and left Joseph by our things...etc, so then their father Jacob said: how mad was that wolf over Joseph and how merciful it was for his shirt, for he devoured Joseph and did not tear his shirt.
Then the caravan that took Joseph carried him back to Egypt and sold him to a noble man of Egypt and he was called Al-Rayyân ben Al-Waleed as been told, so he who bought him said to his wife: Receive him honourably. Perchance he may prove useful to us or we may adopt him as a son, for they did not have children and so they took care of him and educated him so fine, and so when he grew up, the wife of the noble loved him so much, and it said that no man cna look at him without liking him, and no woman would look at him without loving him for his face was like a full moon, and then the wife of the noble tried to have a relation with him as it had been told by God saying: And she, in whose house he was, asked of him an evil act(Yousof:23), then they said that she kept on trying to get him until happened what was mentioned in quran: She verily desired him, and he would have desired her if it had not been that he saw the argument of his Lord(Yousof:14), then the wife of the noble closed all the doors and went to an idol in her house and covered it with a cloth and said: so it won't see us for I am shy of him. Then said said Joseph: you are shy of an idol that hears not and sees not, and I shall not be shy of my Lord? Then he jumped off and ran and she ran after him, and he wants to get away from the door, and then the noble appeared from the door and saw their situation and it was as God said: And they raced with one another to the door, and she tore his shirt from behind, and they met her lord and master at the door(Yousof:25), and then the wife of the noble said: What shall be his reward, who wisheth evil to thy folk, save prison or a painful doom ?(Yousof:25), then Joseph said: She it was who asked of me an evil act, and some say that God inspired unto Joseph to say to the king (noble): ask this child that still in cradle then he will testify that she was the one who started, then the noble asked the boy about what he saw, so then God made the child speak and testify for Joseph, and the child said: If his shirt is torn from before, then she speaketh truth and he is of the liars. And if his shirt is torn from behind, then she hath lied and he is of the truthful, So when he saw his shirt torn from behind, he said: Lo! this is of the guile of you women. Lo! the guile of you is very great(Yousof:26-28), and then the noble said to Joseph: O Joseph! Turn away from this, and thou, (O woman), ask forgiveness for thy sin. Lo! thou art of the faulty(Yousof: 29). It is then mentioned that when her tidings and conditions reached everyone in the city and the women of the nobles started to blame and talk about Zelikhâ' the wife of the noble as been told by the quran: And women in the city said: The ruler's wife is asking of her slave-boy an ill- deed(Yousof:30) , and she understood and knew what is the situation and the gossip in the city, and so she gathered them all and they sat on the place that was prepared for them, and then she gave each one of them a knife, a citron and a lemon and she ordered them to cut and eat, and then she said to Joseph: get out for them, and then when they saw him they became amazed and their hearts loved him and said: O God this is not a human but an angel, and they started cutting their hands without feeling it for they were busy with looking at him and his beauty, and for this they said this is not a human, and then the wife of the noble said: This is he on whose account ye blamed me. I asked of him an evil act, but he proved continent, but if he do not my behest he verily shall be imprisoned(Yousof:32).
It is mentioned in tidings that after this event, every woman that saw him sent to him want him beside her, so he got much pain for that, and said: O my Lord! Prison is more dear than that unto which they urge me, and if Thou fend not off their wiles from me I shall incline unto them and become of the foolish(Yousof:33), and so God answered his prays and fended off their wiles. Then the wife of the noble ordered for him to be imprisoned, and it is mentioned about the interpretations of God's saying: And it seemed good to them (the men-folk) after they had seen the signs (of his innocence) to imprison him for a time(Yousof:35), and the signs were the testimony of the child and he was Zalikhâ's sister's son and he was three months old and he was in the cradle and Joseph used his testimony to prove his innocence, and the shirt the was tornfrom behind and Zalikhâ torn it for her love to Joseph when they raced to the door until that her husband heard her trials to get him and he was avoiding her, and when he refused, she did not leave him alone until she ordered for him to be imprisoned. Then two young men went with him into the jail, some say that they were servants for the king, one was the bread maker and the other was the cupbearer and they were imprisoned for someone told the king that they were trying to poison him, and some say that the king appointed these two men to protect him, and when Joseph went into the jail they asked him: what is your craft? He answered: interpret dreams, and then one of them dreamt what was mentioned in quran as: I dreamed that I was pressing wine(Yousof:36), and then Joseph said to him: you will be out of prison and manage the drink of the king and you will have a high place in his court, and the other said: dreamed that I was carrying upon my head bread whereof the birds were eating, but he actually did not see a dream, but he was lying only. Then Joseph said: you will kill and the king will kill you and crucify you and the birds will eat from your brain, so he said then: I did not see a thing, then Joseph said: Thus is the case judged concerning which ye did inquire, and when the cupbearer wanted to go out of jail and he was the one that was saved, Joseph said to him: mention me in the court of your lord but the devil made him forget about him as it was mentioned in quran and he stayed some more years.
Some historians say: Joseph was for his master, before the event with the wife of the noble took place, he was the owner of commands and the head of his servants and also the one that used to control his house and no one in the house has a higher place than him except for his master and his wife, and God guided Joseph and educated him, and taught him great knowledgement, and God appointed that by saying: Thus we established Joseph in the land that We might teach him the interpretation of events. And Allah was predominant in His career, but most of mankind know not. And when he reached his prime We gave him wisdom and knowledge. Thus We reward the good(Yousof:21-22).


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