In answer to the video "Meeting the Quran's Challenge: Joseph and the Cutting of the Hands"
We jump to the portion where the scandal of what had occured between the prophet Yusuf and his mistress had spread among the women of the high society. This would have been inevitable. Such a rumor would have been hard to contain given the number of witnesses to the incident, the fact that such a large household counted multiple members and servants. Servants gossip among eachother as they come and go outside of eachother's workplaces. They carry this kind of talk to their mistresses who then speak of it in their gatherings.
The best option for Yusuf's mistress to confront the scandal was to have other women empathize with her and even better yet, involve them in the same misdeed with Yusuf. This would have at least stopped the injurious talk, given their empathy, and at best shifted the entire blame upon Yusuf who would have appeared as a deliberate seducer, contrary to what was demonstrated prior to her husband 12:25-29. The mistress needed to enhance her credibility, because until now she was still denying the facts to her husband despite the evidence. This is seen by the fact that she would only confess to the truth years later when her scheme and that of her friends unravelled publicly 12:51.
Once the mistress assembled her friends and that they saw Yusuf for the first time, her objective was achieved; they understood her falling for Yusuf's beauty, and were now equally desirous of him
12:32"and if he does not do what I bid him, he shall certainly be imprisoned and he shall certainly be of those who are in a state of ignominy".Imprisonment was thus primarily a means of blackmailing him into satisfying the mistress and her friend's desires, and once that would be achieved, Yusuf would be faced with multiple testimonies of sexual misconduct. From desperation and humiliation, the mistress' situation had now turned to that of credibility and control; if Yusuf yields to the other women's demands, her word would become weigthier against the evidence of her guilt and enough to shift the blame on him. If he refuses, she could equally use her friends' false accusation to jail him. Being now desirous of him, they were equally ready to blackmail him with imprisonement. In both cases she would be exonerated and would have exacted personal revenge on him. To the pious Yusuf however, the choice was clear
12:33"My Lord, the prison house is dearer to me than that to which THEY (the mistress and the other women) invite me.."Yusuf, protected by his Lord, did not yield to blackmail. He readily accepted his prison sentence instead of remaining in this increasingly spiritually compromising environement. Being a servant he had no other issue. He was completely cornered, and could not leave the household by his own will
12:33"and if You turn not away their device from me, I will yearn towards them and become one of the ignorant".They imprisonned him despite the clear proof of his innocence
12:35"Then it occured to them after they had seen the signs (ie the signs of his innocence), that they should imprison him for while".Both the accusers and the king had each seen, at different occasions, evidence refuting the charges made against him. But now through this scheme the word of a helpless slave against multiple such testimonies weighted strongly against him, and on top of that, lended support to his mistress' original claims and subsequent denial to her husband, despite there still remaining some circumstancial evidence in Yusuf's favor. The only course of action now to the king was to burry the scandal by jailing Yusuf, thus putting a definite close to the case. Years passed and the kingdom was about to face a severe famine. Yusuf, from his prison cell, had provided vital information to the king on how to overcome that crisis. Seeing how he succeeded with wisdom where the soothsayers and close advisers failed, the king offered him unconditional pardon.
But Yusuf refused to leave prison despite the amnesty, unless he was publicly cleared from the slightest blemish. His accusers knew for sure he was free of any wrongdoing but the king could still harbor some inner suspicions since he was neither present during the incident with his own wife which she was still in denial of, nor during the alleged misconduct with the other women. That is why Yusuf refused to leave prison until his innocence was ascertained, not to anyone but the king himself, inside whose house he had supposedly comitted his multiple misdeeds. It was also a way for Yusuf to show his regard to the master, who had found him abandoned as a little child and opened up his house and heart as he would do to a son 12:21. He could not afford leaving the slightest lingering doubt in his master's mind. Yusuf did not care what his accusers thought of him, he had nothing to prove to them and did not even hold a grudge against them. He does not allude to their allegations specifically but rather only points to his accusers in an unrelated incident, as if he is seeking to spare their inner conscience the humiliation of having to repeat their lies in details and publicly
12:50"Go back to your lord and ask him, what is the case of the women who cut their hands; surely my Lord knows their guile".He was in a way appealing to their own deepest sense of justice without compelling them to recant. Such a forgiving pattern of speech is consistently seen in that intricate account, all throughout the stages of Yusuf's rise to prominence and until he is reunited with his family. So instead of seizing the opportunity to avenge himself against those that slandered and jailed him, by embarrassing them and going into the expletive details of their charges, Yusuf instead focuses on the essential point; he hadnt betrayed the king's trust 12:52. That objective wouldn't have been achieved had he left prison through a favor. His wise political counseling that was unrelated to the reason he was jailed in the first place. He did not want there to still remain the slightest suspicion in the king's heart against his integrity and loyalty. Hence the surgical precision and eloquent words of the Quran, reverting to Yusuf's intent behind his inquiry to the king once his accusers abandonned their charges and affirmed his truthfulness
"This is that he might know that I (Yusuf) have not been unfaithful to him in secret and that Allah does not guide the device of the unfaithful".It is such constancy in righteousness, impeccable display of high character, far reaching wisdom and insight that overwhelmed the conscience of his accusers, forcing them to retract their charges. First the mistress' friends who had been manipulated and drawn into this scheme, and then the mistress herself who was now cornered just as Yusuf was, with no other option but to admit to the truth for the first time in front of her husband 12:50-53. The king's trust in his former slave was fully restored, to the point he not only freed him from jail and emancipated him, but instantly gave him access to a position of honor and prestige
12:54"Surely you are in our presence today an honorable, a faithful one".At that point, Yusuf does not bow in humility and gratitude to the king, as would most if not all people do in his place, following a long ordeal, vindication and reward. Sensing the urgency of the situation, he made a bold request
"Place me (in authority) over the treasures of the land, surely I am a good keeper, knowing well. And thus did We give to Yusuf power in the land-- he had mastery in it wherever he liked".Yusuf's worthiness, wisdom and aptitude had been demonstrated to such an extent that not the slightest suspicion could have been voiced as to his purpose in wanting unrestricted access to power. He was the one person who could manage with impeccable integrity the years of crisis Egypt was about to face. One cannot overstate the impact of Yusuf's character and how the various steps of that part of his life climaxed in the best of ways; most of the time once a false accusation is unveiled, the victim's reputation remains somehow stained for most of his life. Even more so in cases involving alleged sexual misconduct. But in Yusuf's case, not only was his name cleared but his standing in addition was raised so high in the eyes of the people that he was granted undisputed authority in the land 12:54-57. None of this would have been possible unless it had occured exactly as the Quran relates it. One of the multifaceted lessons from this intricately well knit and eloquent story, is the manner in which God allows apparently difficult events to occur in one's life, even to people as pious and upright as a prophet, in order to ultimately bring about a greater good, provided the person endures those challenges with God-consciousness. The prophet Yusuf's rise in the land was thus progressively, but inevitably brought about through hardships he steadfastly overcame, always remembering his Lord in the process.
It is remarkable to see how the passage, which would have been muddled had it been man-made, or had it been the result of cherry picking of various unidentified traditions floating around, leaves aside the inconsistencies of Jewish traditions (whose texts post date the Quran). Joseph is supposedly put in a dungeon within the mistress' household so that he could be entirely hers. How would his confinement achieve that objective as opposed to blackmailing him as proposed in the Quran? How does imprisonement result in anything else than reducing him to 12:32"a state of ignominy"? Further why would the role of the other women simply be to attest to the mistress' calumny against Joseph as opposed to them being empathetic of their friend's position and eventually ensnared into scheming against him so as to enhance the mistress' credibility? How credible would have been the testimony of close friends all supporting the same person's claim, as opposed to them independantly accusing him of assault on different occasions and on different persons as implied in the Quran version? The various elements of the Quranic account of the story are so realistic, logically and intricately connected that, assuming Yusuf, al Aziz and his wife are historical characters, the story could not have happened anyway else than as narrated in the Quran. This reinforces the notion of the Quran being independant of the sources supposedly contemporaries to it. Appearing in an environment where the potential for it to have contained similar inconsistencies as the ones found in the myriad of traditions and texts, allegedly contemporaries to it and referencing similar stories. And yet with every single one of those parallels, the Quran and its supposed authors keep on cherry picking the most relevant information, discarding the absurdities and constituting a version whose details are loaded with intricacies and connected in the best of ways. As stated in introduction to the story
12:3"We narrate to you the best of narratives, by Our revealing to you this Quran, though before this you were certainly one of those who did not know".Take away any of the concise yet meaningful details of the Quranic account and the story loses its supreme eloquence and integrity. This is what happened to the Judeo-Christian versions of the story, as some of the details were omitted in the transmission process, deliberately or not, thus betraying down the line the human minds that attempted to fill the gaps and incoherences left by their predecessors.
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