my faith
...
ISLAM
251
ry
fh
fh
fh
fh
fh
fh
fh
fh
fh
fh
fh
fh
fh
fh
fh
vn
The following is the story of Prophet Yusuf [a]
(Joseph), the youngest of the twelve sons of
the patriarch Prophet Ya’qub [a] (Jacob). The story is
called the most beautiful of stories for many reasons: I)
it is the most detailed of any in the Qur’an ; 2) it is full
of human vicissitudes, and has therefore deservedly
appealed to men and women of all classes; 3) it paints
in vivid colours, with their spiritual implications, the
most varied aspects of life - the patriarch’s old age and
the confidence between him and his little best-beloved
son, the elder brothers’ jealousy of this little son, their
plot and their father’s grief, the sale of the father’s dar-
ling into slavery for a miserable little price, carnal love
contrasted with purity and chastity, false charges,
prison, the interpretation of dreams, low life and high
life, innocence raised to honour, the sweet ‘revenge’ of
forgiveness and benevolence, high matters of state and
administration, huility in exaltation, filial love, and the
beauty of piety and truth.
The story is similar to but not identical with the Biblical
story, but the atmosphere is wholly different. The
Biblical story is like a folk-tale in which morality has no
place. Its tendency is to exalt the clever and financially-
minded Jew against the Egyptian, and to explain cer-
tain ethnic and tribal peculiarities in later Jewish histo-
ry. Joseph is shown as buying up all the cattle and the
land of the poor Egyptians for the State under the
stress of famine conditions, and making the Israelites
‘rulers’ over Pharoah’s cattle. The Quranic story, on the
other hand, is less a narrative than a highly spiritual
sermon or allegory explaining the seeming contradic-
tions in life, the enduring nature of virtue in a world full
of flux and change, and the marvellous working of
Allah’s eternal purpose in His Plan as unfolded to us on
the wide canvas of history.
PT
