Jacob, Joseph And His Brethren

Remember, when Joseph [Yoosuf] said unto his father, O my father, verily I saw in sleep eleven stars and the sun and the moon : I saw them making obeisance unto me. He replied, O my child, relate not thy vision to thy brethren, lest they contrive a plot against thee, knowing its interpretation to be that they are the stars and that the sun is thy mother and the moon thy father; for the devil is unto man a manifest enemy. And thus, as thou sawest, thy Lord will choose thee, and teach thee the interpretation of events, or dreams, and will accomplish his favour upon thee by the gift of prophecy, and upon the family of Jacob, as He accomplished it upon thy fathers before, Abraham and Isaac ; for thy Lord is knowing [and] wise.–Verily in the history of Joseph and his brethren are signs to the inquirers.–When they (the brethren of Joseph) said, one to another, Verily Joseph and his brother Benjamin are dearer unto our father than we, and we are a number of men; verily our father is in a manifest error; slay ye Joseph, or drive him away into a distant land; so the face of your father shall be directed alone unto you, regarding no other, and ye shall be after it a just people :–a speaker among them, namely, Judah, said, Slay not Joseph, but throw him to the bottom of the well; then some of the travellers may light upon him, if ye do this. And they were satisfied therewith. They said, O our father, wherefore dost thou not intrust us with Joseph, when verily we are faithful unto him ? Send him with us to-morrow into the plain, that he may divert himself and sport; and we will surely take care of him.–He replied, Verily your taking him away will grieve me, and I fear lest the wolf devour him while ye are heedless of him. They said, Surely if the wolf devour him, when we are a number of men, we shall in that case be indeed weak. So he sent him with them. And when they went away with him, and agreed to put him at the bottom of the well, they did so. ²¹⁹ They pulled off his shirt, after they had beaten him and had treated him with contempt and had desired to slay him; and they let him down ; and when he had arrived half-way down the well they let him fall, that he might die ; and he fell into the water. He then betook himself to a mass of rock ; and they called to him ; so he answered them, imagining that they would have mercy upon him. They however desired to crush him with a piece of rock; but Judah prevented them. And We said unto him by revelation, while he was in the well (and he was seventeen years of age, or less), to quiet his heart, Thou shalt assuredly declare unto them this their action, and they shall not know thee at the time. ²²⁰ And they came to their father at nightfall weeping. They said, O our father, we went to run races, ²²¹ and left Joseph with our clothes, and the wolf devoured him; and thou wilt not believe us, though we speak truth. And they brought false blood upon his shirt. Jacob said unto them, Nay, your minds have made a thing seem pleasant unto you, and ye have done it; ²²² but patience is seemly, and God's assistance is implored with respect to that which ye relate.