Yusuf and Zulaikha (the English transliteration of both names varies greatly) is a title given to many tellings in the Muslim world of the story of the relationship between the prophet Yusuf and Potiphar's wife. Developed primarily from the account in Sura 12 of the Qur'an, a distinct story of Yusuf and Zulaikha seems to have developed in Persia around the tenth century CE. According to Agnès Kefeli, "in the biblical and Qur’anic interpretations of Joseph's story, Potiphar's wife bears all the blame for sin and disappears quickly from the narrative". But "in Turkic and Persian literatures, Joseph and Zulaykha do, ultimately, become sexually united, in parallel to their noncorporeal mystical union". The story of Yusuf and Zulaikha is subsequently found in many languages, such as Arabic, Persian, Bengali, Turkish, Punjabi and Urdu. Its most famous version was written in the Persian language by Jami (1414–1492), in his Haft Awrang ('Seven Thrones').
Origins Though found widely in the Muslim world, the story of Yusuf and Zulaika seems first to have developed an independent form in Persian literature around the tenth century CE: there is evidence for a lost narrative poem on the subject by the tenth-century Abu l-Muʾayyad Balkhī (as well as one by an otherwise unknown Bakhtiyārī of apparently similar date). The principal source was the Qur'an's twelfth sura, which recounts the whole of Yusuf's life, supplemented by commentaries on the Qur'an and retellings of Yusuf's life in the genre of biographies of the Prophets known as Qiṣaṣ al-anbiyāʾ, along with Syriac Christian works and (probably mostly indirectly) the Hebrew Midrash.
Zulaikha's name Neither the Qur'an nor narrations from the ahadith state that Aziz's (Potiphar) wife's name is Zulaikha. In the Qur'an she is named simply (, 'Aziz's wife'). The classical Islamic scholar al-Haafiz Ibn Kathir suggested that her title was Zulaikha. The name was popularized from the poem "Yusuf and Zulaikha" by 15th century poet Jami and later medieval Jewish sources.
The Qur'anic account
The story of Yusuf and Zulaikha takes place in the twelfth chapter of the Qur’an, titled "Yusuf." The story plays a primary role within the chapter, and begins after Yusuf, son of Yaqub ibn Ishaq ibn Ibrahim, is abandoned and subsequently sold to an Egyptian royal guard.
After reaching maturity, Yusuf becomes so beautiful that his master's wife, later called Zulaikha in the Islamic tradition, falls in love with him. Blinded by her desire, she locks him in a room with her and attempts to seduce him. Through his great wisdom and power, Yusuf resists her and turns around to open the door. Upset, Zulaikha attempts to stop him, and in the process, rips the back of his shirt. At this moment, Zulaikha's husband (the lord of the house and Yusuf's master) catches Zulaikha and Yusuf struggling at the door and calls for an explanation. Deflecting the blame, Zulaikha tells her husband that Yusuf attempted to seduce her. Yusuf contradicts this and tells the lord that Zulaikha wanted to seduce him. The lord is unsure who is guilty, but the young baby of a servant of the household tells him that the placement of the rip on Yusuf's shirt will tell the truth about what truly happened. According to the baby, if Yusuf's shirt was ripped at the front, he must have been going toward Zulaikha, attempting to seduce her. On the other hand, if Yusuf's shirt was ripped from the back, he was trying to get away from Zulaikha; therefore, Zulaikha was guilty. After examining Yusuf's shirt and seeing the rip on the back, Yusuf's master determines his wife is the guilty party, and angrily tells her to ask forgiveness for her sin.
Later, Zulaikha overhears a group of women speaking about the incident, verbally shaming Zulaikha for what she did. Zulaikha, angered by this, gives each woman a knife and calls for Yusuf. Upon his arrival, the women cut themselves with their knives, shocked by his beauty. Zulaikha, boosted by proving to the women that any woman would fall for Yusuf, proudly claims that Yusuf must accept her advances, or he will be imprisoned.
Disturbed by Zulaikha's claim, Yusuf prays to Allah, begging Allah to make them imprison him, as Yusuf would rather go to jail than do the bidding of Zulaikha and the other women. Allah, listening to Yusuf's request, makes the chief in power believe Yusuf should go to prison for some time, and so Yusuf does.
Development in Arabic literature Although Agnès Kefeli has said that "in Turkic and Persian literatures (although not in the Qur’an or the Arabic tales of the prophets), Joseph and Zulaykha do, ultimately, become sexually united", their union does occur in some Arabic literature. Examples include Muḥammad al-Kisāʾī's probably 11th-century CE Qiṣaṣ al-anbiyāʾ: here Zulaykha comes to Yūsuf during the Egyptian famine, facing starvation, whereupon Yūsuf restores her to her accustomed grandeur and marries her, and God restores her youth and beauty. Zulaykha turns out to be a virgin because her previous husband Potiphar "was impotent because he was prideful" and she bears two sons.. Another example is the probably 17th-century Egyptian account of Joseph edited by Faïka Croisier as .
In poetry
Persian
Early versions The first surviving Persian narrative account of Yusuf and Zulaikha is a probably eleventh-century mathnawī called Yūsuf u Zulaykhā. From as early as the fifteenth century into the twentieth, this account was thought to be by the renowned poet Firdawsī, composer of the secular Persian epic Shahnameh, but the authorship is now regarded as unknown. ϒūsuf u Zulayk̲h̲ā mentions earlier versions of the same story, now lost, by Abu l-Muʾayyad Balkhī and Bakhtiyārī. At least two main redactions of ϒūsuf u Zulayk̲h̲ā are known, with different versions as short as 6,500 lines and as long as 9,000. According to J. T. P. Brujin, 'the story is framed by the life of Yūsuf’s father, the prophet Yaʿḳūb, and is told on the lines of traditional prophetic legend [...] The religious significance of the subject is emphasised, but no mystical meanings are implied'. As of the late twentieth century, the poem had yet to receive a systematic analysis of its textual history and a scholarly edition, but two non-critical editions and a German translation existed.Firdausî of Ṭûs, Yûsuf and Zalîkhâ, Edited From the Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library, the British Museum, and the Library of the Royal Asiatic Society, and the Two Lithographed Texts of Teheran and Lucknow (or Cawnpore), ed. by Hermann Ethé, Anecdota Oxoniensa Aryan Series, 6 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1908). [Persian edition with English notes.]Ed. by Ḥusayn Muḥammad-zāda Ṣiddīḳ (Tehran 1368 AH/1990 CE), based on Tehran, Kitābk̲h̲āna-yi Markazī, MS. no. 5063/1.Tr. O. Schlechta-Wssehrd, Jussuf und Suleicha. Romantisches Heldengedicht von Firdussi (Vienna, 1889). Parts of the translation also appeared in Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft, 41 (1887), 577–99 and in Verhandlungen des VII. Internationalen Orientalisten-Congresses ... Semitische Section (Vienna 1888), 47–72.
While Yūsuf u Zulaykhā does not seem to have been particularly influential on Persian tradition, it was a key source for the account of Yusuf in Shāhīn-i Shīrāzī's Judaeo-Persian Bereshit-nāma, a mathnawī on the Book of Genesis composed around 1358.
Jami In 1483 AD, the renowned poet Jami wrote his interpretation of the allegorical romance and religious texts of Yusuf and Zulaikha. It became a classical example and the most famous version of Sufi interpretation of Qur’anic narrative material. Jami's example shows how a religious community takes a story from a sacred text and appropriate it in a religious-socio-cultural setting that is different from the original version. Therefore, it is known as a masterpiece of Sufi mystical poetry.Beutel, David. "Jami's Yusuf and Zulaikha: A Study in the Method of Appropriation of Sacred Text." Beutel. Accessed November 18, 2022. As well as being available in a scholarly edition of the Persian,Mathnawī-yi Haft awrang, ed. by Murtaḍā Mudarris-i Gīlānī (Tehran, 1337 AH/1958 CE), pp. 578–748. the work has been translated into German, French,Djami, Youssouf et Zouleikha, trans. by Auguste Bricteux, Les joyaux de l'Orient, 5 (Paris: Geuthner, 1927). Russian,'Abd al-Rahmãn Jãmi, Yusufi Zuleikha, trans. by Semyon Lipkin, in Dzhami, Izbraniia proizvedeniia (Leningrad, 1978). and English.Yúsuf and Zulaikha: A Poem by Jámi, trans. by Ralph T. H. Griffith (London: Trübner, 1882) [reprinted London: Routledge, 2000].Yusuf and Zulaikha, trans. by David Pendlebury (London: Octagon, 1980) (abridged).
Jami opens the poem with a prayer. In the narrative, Yusuf is a uniquely handsome young man, so beautiful he has an influence on everyone that meets him. Due to his beauty, he becomes a victim of his brothers' jealousy, and they take him to be sold to the in a slave market in Egypt. Jami shows that Yusuf's brothers' greed is not how to live a Sufi life. Yusuf is put up for sale and astounds everyone with his beauty. This causes a commotion in the market and the crowd starts bidding for him. Zulaikha, the rich and beautiful wife of Potiphar, sees him and, struck by Yusuf's beauty, outbids everyone and buys him.
For years, Zulaikha suppresses her desire for Yusuf until she can resist it no longer and she attempts to seduce him. When Potiphar finds out, he sends Yusuf to prison, causing Zulaikha to live with extreme guilt. One day while in prison, Yusuf proves able to interpret the Pharaoh's dream, and thus the Pharaoh makes Yusuf his treasurer. Because of this, Yusuf is able to meet with Zulaikha. He sees that she still loves him and is miserable. He takes her in his arms and prays to God. The prayer and the love Yusuf and Zulaikha have for each other attracts a blessing from God, who restores youth and beauty to Zulaikha. The couple marry and live thereafter.
What the audience learns from this story is that God's beauty appears in many forms and that Zulaikha's pursuit of love from Yusuf is, in fact, the love and pursuit of God.Beutel, "Jami's Yusuf and Zulaikha: A Study in the Method of Appropriation of Sacred Text." In Jami's version, Zulaikha is the main character and even more important thematically and narratively than Yusuf. Yusuf, on the other hand, is a two-dimensional character. Another difference in Jami's version is that the overwhelming majority of the story is unrelated to the Qur’an. Finally, Jami claims that his inspiration to write this version of the story comes from love.Beute, "Jami's Yusuf and Zulaikha: A Study in the Method of Appropriation of Sacred Text."
In South Asia
Shah Muhammad Saghir