Surah Yusuf Part 21-35 B: The House of Aziz; Comparative Notes Between Qur'an and Jewish Tradition

okay team yet again I'd like to first thank me it is an Oxford University for the choppy situation hopefully sake will mean a better connection or we will try again at a later time let's see forget he's getting in and out sake are you with us so I'm go to a Starbucks manse do you not fasting anymore holding on to hope here yes turn yours okay turn your camera off for a second and see if your sound is because you may be taking a lot of it can I do that okay sake can you hear

me tuck it we see you we see you oh he gave up give up oh so how's it going alright I'm gonna give up a minute I'll give him a minute and then see if we can get them getting back on okay meanwhile how's it going Internet so good you excited no one sir I love when people come in no man sir what is that the monster okay soccer was coming back it's like he's coming back it's gonna happen it's gonna have him just watch I'm no man no not for you to 1f DFT I

can do it you can so I think that a second just needs to restart his computer so we could talk for five minutes good at me I mean yes minutes we are now on Aisle number 35 Oh suit yourself how do you think the experience has been so far it's been really unexpected honestly so once you once you really start to think and and especially in the discussion process and you know and even before we get to sort of trying to compare with the Bible and other strands of ideas and thoughts and yeah I'm talking

about you and me our struggle it's been you know it's it's very it's very challenging honestly yeah the the responsibility of trying to understand it properly and explain to others I mean that's that's very burdensome but you know one because that's more your your job you know talking to people so it's the the thinking process is very very freeing actually when you are looking at what a loofa sitting have said and you're also seeing interesting things about what sort of questions they're dealing with what's coming to their minds and kind of what kind of things

were being explored before now and for sure a lot of those things overlapped with the same kind of things that we that we tend to think about like what was going through these various people's minds like that's something that they do try to answer and nobody has a direct access to like you know we can't go and interview those people involved in the story and we can you know find out what else was happening what they were talking about in the background or my sense is we have our going for what we have and for

the most part what we have to do is look at what the Quran tells us and and read through the hand around that and that's that's not something new that we're doing of course but it's possible to reach some different conclusions based on how we interpret certain signals and how we interpret certain circumstantial Clues like some some overall things in the story I think we're very interesting and I noticed this also when I'm looking at some people's reflections or reactions to some of the things what I wanted to talk to you about I'll take an

example from you of it the so you know we're I'm giving the lectures on this after we have our discussion and yet you're also you have a bunch of you know intermediate to advanced students that you're having discussions with about the co2 Yusef and your problem they're probably also following along I think some of what I'm doing or discussing yeah there's what kinds of conversations have you found that stuck out as you were engaging with them because I'm sure they're coming across things they didn't come across before yeah and what's that interaction been like well

the students that I'm working with are reading 2-0 Razi which which we're also doing together and Jeff sealed a Lucy which is a much more recent one 19th century 8fc and the silh illusi goes into detail about just about everything you know that so whatever is being discussed in tuffsy typically going to find in there so sometimes they're the discussions can go down to very you know my new points of grammar and sometimes they're much more about the flow of events and you know this is fill in the gaps of chronology yeah so like some

of the most interesting discussions we've had is like about the AIA in which the women had to cut their hands right because in an actual fact in in in interfere in standard this year there isn't that much variation about was understood by that but it's interesting that maybe in the modern time there's been a few variants quite different attempts to explain that in different ways because for whatever reason people found it strange or hard to accept that it was just literally a case that some people had been given knives and the you know we're taken

aback by what they saw and I made a series of cuts in their hand which is which is pretty much you know quite plainly what the equal daya is seeing but the people started to look for alternative ways to read some of the phrases whether it's the word seekeen itself is seeking a knife or could it be something else but that was one of the investigations what about katana idea Hoonah literally they cut their hands or cut them repeatedly does that actually an expression for something else like for example does it mean they tried their

utmost to to do something like - to mislead them to seduce you so or does it mean or their reason was something other than what you know the the apparent thing which everyone had pretty much accepted up until now so we ended up reading a few different theories and and you know it likes people have pulsar in internet forums and stuff but actually respectable scholars you know people who have made a decent case of it and they've written something and so we were also analyzing some of these alternative theories and trying to see what we

think of them just while they while they were also trying to find holes in the standard account we were saying well you know but how much you the alternative becomes actually hold up as well because the thing about the seed is it's not always the case that this one explanation that is so perfectly clear and free of any objection and free of any you know wiggle room your card interview right so yeah but just as if we're gonna say the standard view presents problems 1 2 & 3 right but then if someone's going to come

up in an alternative view we should be ready to say and that alternative view has problems for labelling yeah you know have to be honest about putting them on the table and saying okay well once we've surveyed all of that what seems to be most reasonable and then how do we tie that in with the rest of our understanding about the surah and sometimes I found that in our discussions that Norman is that you know because we'd sort of gone a particular direction in and how he'd read who is that as these and what is

really up to do we see him for examples a really genial find character very patient and forbearing and if he's portrayed in that way then you're gonna read certain things in that life certain way yeah you if you're going to see the the wife of disease as being in love with Youssef and we're going to use the word love and then that's become so very really ingrained in people's minds that I noticed that and some people's reactions to our I would take on things is that people found it very difficult to to accept certain points

because they said look the Quran is telling us that she was in love with him and my point there or what I think we've tried to come across is that well let's look carefully and see like where does it come that that what's happening here was called love the only time that's mentioned is Baba it was the women of the city yeah who then said he has like completely overtaken her heart with love so that was the word that they use but then we have to ask why did they use that word is it is

it an accurate reflection of the situation or was that a vaisya motivation or does the word hope' meaning love does it have some other shades of meaning and you know can it be used ironically can it be mockingly you know so yeah or even more so is a lot endorsing what they're saying or is allah subhana wa ta'ala depicting how these people see love and it's giving an insight from their perspective because the quran also speaks from the Pharaohs perspective but not not endorsing the Pharaoh yeah or speaks from the devil's perspective not endorsing the

devil right so there K if you don't sort of see from the lens of the speaker and then the lens the larger lens of the Quran if we only wear the sacred lens anything that's coming out of the Quran has to be looked at from a divine lens then we lose sight of the fact that Allah is sometimes capturing historically certain individual speaking is teaching that certain kinds of people think yeah the thought process they have which is part of guidance understanding people also around us and and I guess what was what's going to come

up in our conversation today is another thing which I found really interesting about people's reactions was people have come to see that the surah or certain parts this ayah maybe in particular where she says to him come out in front of them and then they cut their hands right people have taken it that almost the point of this is for us to understand how beautiful Yusuf al Islam is rather than that being an incidental or maybe important detail and fact of the matter which which affects what happened and how we understand it people have actually

taken it almost as well that's the purpose like that's what the ayah is is for is so that the guidance of that is for us understand how beautiful you Safari Stan was right because we've set that as a cornerstone that must be reinforced and then reinforced in the reinforced yes the hadith is there about his beauty but the and it is it does play a pivotal role in some of what transpired but to try to make everything that happened at the leal for how beautiful he is a terry to hammer the point almost takes away

from the scene itself and what's going on and some of the other things we might miss out on because we're still hung up on this one point yeah and I noticed in the comments one time someone even said like such as such happened in the movie and and I actually just funded to that I said may just bear in mind the movie you know is a movie and this is the yeah little to getting good spill it but they just said well it's fun you know it's a nice movie which is fine but are you

good for the audience I'll you know let you guys in on a little bit of a you know secret top secret plans my intention in China over the coming you know for the next twelve months until the next Ramadan I was kind of making my plans for what kinds of stuff I want to do on social media what kinds of stuff I want to do for Bayon and being a TV etc especially the uncertainty with kovat and everything that's happening you know we want to think about how to be the most productive with the work

we're trying to do with spreading awareness of the Quran and part of my agenda and chalice obviously to continue sort of use of reach a milestone and then have this comparative discussion along would you sake but actually not limited to this I I want to launch some other thing online and part of that will be you know even a one-on-one you and myself Sohaib where we're discussing some principals interfere or some of the challenges in interpreting the quran or some common questions that we get maybe we have a live open QA session of that sort

because you know one side of what I really believe should happen is more people should be appreciating the beauty and the the relevance of a less word in their lives and the other is we need to be raising the bar about the kinds of you know intellectual discussions we're having about the Quran and the kind of inquisitiveness we should have about the Quran and get some of these baseline questions answered that people get often right and how would we think about that and how would we try and respond to some of those things what I

don't want to do that's it's also important to mention what I don't want to do going into the future is actually a refutation 'el type discourse where you know we're trying to you know somebody has a particular point of view or an agenda or whatever and we're trying to dismantle that or you know deconstruct it there's enough of that available on the Internet there are people that are dedicated to undoing other people and that's yeah we're not interested I'm interested in furthering inquiry into the Quran and you know really genuine you know for them and

as much as we can you know facilitate that and show so I'm excited about that so let's I think what people understand you know and just yeah yeah which is why this side conversation that we had veering away from the Genesis reading it's kind of like a preview of the kinds of discussions you and I inshallah are going to be having more of and now that I figured out how to do this you know thing which is so cool I feel like I'm running a TV show or something so cool but yeah so we're gonna

do more of this stuff each other and figure out ways of getting the audience even more interactively involved so some of this stuff is on the horizon inshallah and well we'll deal with it as it comes but anyway so let's get back to where we were you got cut off you were saying something sake but then you started sounding like you're from the future so I can't remember what I was saying I guess this will do it okay I was asking about the what in the world that means is that someone who sits in the

chamber just a senior official like other people our travel agent like the caption of the guards are like there's the Hebrew something there's the Hebrew rendition of it anything similar to a Laozi's or anything no I didn't think so music look at this little brush here no it said sir there's where do these footprints sometimes as well they create no practice Oh what about Egyptian master that's the the version of the translation you've given me he was in the house of his Egyptian master Lord for what's the word for master that they're using which is

that it was in the hospital mr. great I don't know I don't know right so I don't that's the rightful Lord in Hebrew sir in fact the the word for God in Hebrew Yahweh which Orthodox Jews don't pronounce whenever they come across it they say I don't know instead is that same word is being used for Potiphar here ok ok so I shall be redundant yes yeah so the Lord made him succeed in his hand and Joseph found favor in his eyes and he ministered to him and he put him in charge of his house

and all that he had placed in his hands and it happened from the time he put him in charge of his house and all that he had and the Lord had blessed him again recurring the Egyptians house for Joseph's sake and the Lord's blessing was on all that he had in the house and the end field and he left if you can just yeah yeah so so again as you notice the word blessing is really conspicuous here because this can become conspicuous by its absence as you proceed to show the ambivalence of you know what

Joseph is up to espera so one clear difference between the Quranic account and this account is that it doesn't explicitly say here that first by is adopting him as a son right instead it says that he became his kind of attendance so the web the web there sharra to make them on your personal assistant we actually know from historical records that this was a position in Egyptian society so the mapper is someone who is the head of the household he was extremely powerful he was in charge of all of his master's affairs and that's what

we're being told about Joseph so they didn't exactly say it was a son it does give him a rank which is clearly what's really interesting is that it's only way later in the story when what first wife is trying to turn the house hold and trying to turn his wife against Joseph that she starts calling him a slave and it to kind of remind everyone of what he really is so at this stage even though technically it's clear that he is - a slave he's learning a doctor son in the story it's his high rank

that's being emphasized and later that kind of the reality of the rack will be emphasized by yeah I was when I was discussing this ayah when we came to the IRS I in Faneuil not Idaho Weleda possibly he could be a benefit to us or we could take him as our son the benefit portion of that verb probably refers to him being of service to them as a servant but then this the idea of taking him as a son I was thinking about one of the conversations I had a long time ago with Sharif about

how the Romans operated and the Caesars operated and how they took sons and the idea of you know they would they would look for qualities that would be the you know you have your biological son that you have but then you look for a son that will you know succeed you based on the kinds of qualities like loyalty chivalry dignity intelligence bravery etc etc and you get you basically don't just get the you know the genetic composition that you came in that your son is but you actually get to pick one from the stock of

the military or whatever and take them up as your son but the idea also in ancient society in Quran has this theme that the children when parents get older are basically running things in the house and actually that's even evidenced in the Brothers of Yusuf are they said I'm the National spark Ament is actually a lot about them running things in the house would we get all the stuff done and why is he so so beloved so the idea of him being a servant and then kind of having qualities of a son as the Bible

describes it's actually a pretty interesting fusion between those two phrases the Quran in a very succinct way kind of put those things together that the Bible is talking about it's such an elaborate way and it just kind of summarizes both of them in a sense yeah and also dealing with the Quran by placing him as a quiz I start over emphasizing that aspect of his relationship you know and as soon as eyes being proclaimed to the Meccans who are steeped in this tribal law and how family is more important than truth and you kind of

see useful Islam again again conflict with his family and again again fighting with with truth so I said message that they they really need to hear as well that's remarkable falala so there's a little bit left on this section that they've broken this up into a paragraph and it's it seems to be talking about the amount of trust that Yusuf Ali son was given and he left all that he had in Joseph's hands and he gave no thought to anything with him they are saved the bread he ate and Joseph was comely in features and

comely to look at yeah so yeah there's a good-looking guy right I got it I gotta write that down there comely to look at okay so I think so again the recurrence of blessing is a throwback to something mentioned a couple of taps ago where you see the blessing that was promised to Abraham or the Covenant of Abraham that the nations of the world will be blessed through you is going to be realized by Joseph how this blessing is spreading to beyond Israel you know Egypt is country blessed as well and this is really interesting

it says that he gave him everything except the the food that he ate so you know this is his most immediate concerns his food that he kept for himself everything else with him just which is really interest because eventually even the food that the Egyptians eat will be given to right so I kind of prophetic that about what's going to happen and again I think it's indicative of what the portrait the genesis is painting that here the relationship was healthy and everything was prosperous and the Lord was with him but there will come a time

when power become too centralized and even a little bit autonomy that should be retained for individuals and that would be gone as well so it's I think significant to mention here that so far what we've been introduced to is the promotion of Yusuf Ali Saddam inside the house of the prefer in the biblical version to a place of great deal of trust that his master has put in him and by direct contrast you've got in the Quran well my Bulava should the whole Athena who hookman were Elliman wocka Daniken is an arginine you've got this

spiritual evolution of abuse of relational the air sauna Bucephalus I mean not just a Sun in what he's doing for his immediate you know Authority but actually a sound towards Allah and the fact that he has hokum and I like qualities that aren't actually mentioned here but are in a sense implied if you give someone this much authority in the home they would have to be a person of wisdom and great knowledge and know-how and Trust and Allah instead of talking about the responsibilities that he was given actually talked about the underlying qualities one must

have to actually be given such responsibilities you know and and attributed that to himself I think now hook men look at that e-commerce it's a really interesting contrast this yielding some of them phacelia actually took hokum here to refer to that that he was actually given some authority he was given a rule to judge between people that sometimes cases would be brought before Potiphar or the aziz and aziz would ask yusuf to make a judgement in the matter yeah them when we talked about that directly as well as as you said as an underlying thing

that he would need for his various tasks so here's yet another parallel you've got in the Quran in ayah number 22 you've got to mention it as a son immediately after is the fitna what our that who let me who everybody huh here in the biblical account you've got his state with disease and from seven onwards were reading I'll read forward now and it happened after these things that his master's wife raised her eyes to Joseph and said lie with me and he refused and he said to his master's wife look my master has given

no thought with me here to what is in this hat in the house and all that he has placed in my hands he is not greater in this house than I and he has held back nothing from me except you as you are his wife and how could I do this great evil and give offense to God and so she spoke to Joseph day after day I'll stop here so yeah another interesting parallel which is the test nurse of her speech so she just says come to bed with me and then the long quote about

that use of his leg Israel which again the same similar to the Quran I hate the luck that's all she says to him and then he responses mahalo and read write interestingly the the biblical version of in Nevada by Oksana Malaya the equivalent of that if you say that in the whole of be honest why refers to al Aziz yeah is what he talks about here first and the model aa portion which is first in the Quran is here later where he says how could I do this great evil and give offense to God mmm

right so there he started by other light in the whole of BS and it was fire and here you've kind of got the autumn be economic wire and then the other one yes Mara and so and so she spoke to Joseph day after day and he would not listen to her to lie with her to be with her and this is not something obviously in the Quran that this was an ongoing thing and we did kind of talk about possibly that being an ongoing struggle but not explicitly stated in the Quran and it happened on

one such day that he came into the house to perform his task and there was no man of the men of the house there in the house and she sees him back and also just mean the dr. Auster's mean people of the house didn't touch me man of the house and shame her by it so does that mean that the Bible saying there were no servants in the home there was nobody else in the whole mission so this is really this is really interesting because in the next verse you're gonna call her servants and you'll

use the same word she called the and she had bias right so if they weren't there then how she kind of calling calling out to them so there is a little bit of tension that maybe there are in the fields and she's like screaming out to them or something but there doesn't be something that requires explanation and and these verses also seen just maybe an aggressive truth time they required that they gave rise to a lot of speculation which which is the story of the women and so on is going to come in but yeah

it was interesting is yes there there's no mention of locking doors here this is a mention of an empty house instead and she seized him by his garment saying lie with me and he left his garment in her hand and fled and went out so season the word Tosh sees implies violence so it's not just grab hold of him it does imply that there would have been some force involved so the idea that every been torn is a very natural kind of jump to make from from that description oh so so the tearing is not

out of the question here in the middle you know it's not mentioned but it's but it's easily right you understand yes it is strong as this implied whether it's a natural kind of thing to think about and help me with this and he left his garment in her hand does that mean that a piece of it or is it suggesting that it just tore right off and he's just she's just got a shirt or two right off yeah okay so she's yeah it's not a tear like the carranza cow now she's got the whole shirt

with him and he's run off yeah okay yeah big big big Daggett is in this unit in tight unit oh wow okay so that is a pretty significant difference from the kelan's accountant and also it just suggested that there was a tear right because if she's kind of grabbing him how she gonna end up with the entire tunic in hand right it's kind of torn off here right right and he fled and went out so no alpha-alpha a sayyeda had little Bob know and this is very different they're not reaching the master at the door

by the way one thing we didn't discuss I was reading somewhere I think you discussed her too that there's some suggestion that this wasn't just a room that they were that she was actually home alone and he was running from room to room lock after lock hallway after hallway until they get to the front door of the house yes plays out I mean there's a couple of things here in terms of what the Quran tells or doesn't tell ya think about the servants being there or not there was a question we dealt with because later

on we're sure he's the share he don't mean Ali had there's a literally you see our witness it doesn't mean necessarily an eyewitness to the events it could just be someone who who testifies something you know you could have like I have like an expert witness or it can be different sort of witnesses but there is the possibility that somebody even observed what happened and then because the Quran uses the words was a locket a lab a web you've got a plural word for doors so a lot of them were sitting took it as like

successive doors even to the extent they said they were like seven doors so that would obviously be a huge house you know this is a very outer door than an inner one and then I'm further in a concentric or it could just be like in within one room there could be several doors so in care of locking them and probably in advance as well and until the final door that she needs to take care of at the time of calling him and beckoning him with with high taluk so there's a sense of she's she's done

a lot of locking it's also even sometimes said well you know what you could use the word hub web to indicate multiple locks rather than multiple doors that's how some of them vecinos who took it yeah none of which is here know that and I detail as far as I'm aware is unique to the to the Koran so the the various versions these stories that are the idea that they meet the master at the at the door at the final to the outer door whatever whichever door it is that that is unique to the Quran

invocation yeah so if we brought it on it becomes really interesting in terms of the way the Quran is yeah yeah and the thing that kind of refresh in my mind as I read this as and I'll continue reading and and I wanted to suggest to both of you also is the Quran is clearly far more abbreviated in its depiction of the story then this account there's much less wording and so the the the very brief wording that the Honda choose and then chose to diverge from what's prevalent already are already known is really interesting

that Allah is highlighting the you know this dimension was a la casilla blog and again this goes to me goes back to something else now hosu alayka external causes like the the best way in which the story can be told for the purpose of drawing lessons for the purpose of you know furthering the the email Hynek Ohanian a caja de laranja incontinently Dominica Faline actually even they are javelina of doors being locked in that sense right so yeah you know go ahead so just an acidosis so that that's you know I see no but sometimes

I did the best story I mean you might think with the with being ready for Aston any buses could could you render it as the best part of the best portion of this Roman story yeah the best portion or the best rendition of it or the best the best of the story the best out to here to get out of the store right yeah right or the most beautiful out of the story yeah you could you can see it that way and that's really nice because and the clients are recognizing that it is the same

story but where's you tell you what you were just the best you really won't tell it to you in a way that will make you realize that you were of many dimensions of it often right spiritually the whole the idea of the door right because what stabbed at al-bab they raced to the door previously the multiple doors were mentioned has been locked and then all of a sudden it's their door so of course the natural assumption is okay this means the outer door but there's so many different ways you could that's gonna say directions you

could go with this but this is K point is that it's as if there was one door like it's almost like he he went to one of the doors just hoping to find a solution even though has been looked you know just putting his trust in God and just knowing that well I can't it's too steep hooked where I am I have to you know I can't just accept this just because I've seen doors are locked and that's why some of the tip Cedars even tell us that as it was running to each door it

would just you're miraculously the lock would would fly open and then each one would fly open until they reached the I'm gonna drop a little nugget for both of you to think about the about on this and that is that doors just like the shirt seems to be a recurring theme in this story from the Quran point of view they're gonna come into the city from multiple doors mmm later on and there's going to be Bob well-hidden Bob you know so that's my signify but it's at least something to ponder over until we get there

so I think in closed spaces seems to be another recurring theme in the world the room the prison yeah darkness to Redemption dark mr. adamian there seems to be a that also a recurring theme the other recurring theme that I talked to you about for him was we I mean we reached two milestones in the story thus far as far as major scenes and at the end of each scene he's found himself in a very difficult situation in the first case the well in the second case the prison and right as he is being put

in this you know precarious situation you find a less presence mentioned so when he's being put in the well well in a healer to not be under whom VM Rahim hatha right at that moment right and here an ayah number 35 as he's being gonna be hauled away to prison Allah says Allah who who was sort of an okay though okay the Hoonah in Naju a semi or darling so you've got divine presence mentioned at these strategic points of you know the most desperation every time we get air there's a less presence and I was

telling you how this may play a role and how we see the two almost opposite names of Allah mentioned in this solar Latifah Lamia sha so the subtle presence of Allah and the gladly banana Embry he right you've got both of those being juggled you know as we get to this and I want to be pay attention to the biblical reading and see if that happens also but I'm gonna keep reading on if you guys are okay with it yeah okay so he went out and so when she saw that he left his garment in

her hand and fled outside she called out to the people of the house and said to them saying see he has brought us a Hebrew man to play with us he came into me he came in to me to lie he came in yes he came in to me to lie with me and I called out in a loud voice and so when he heard me raise my voice and call out he left his garment by me and fled and went out and she laid out his garment by okay so so yeah okay great so

there's a lot happening here so firstly make sport Oh what do you have make fun of us know what I have is see has brought us a Hebrew man to play with us to play this okay so sahak is the web to laugh to laugh at us but it's you you for mr. right yeah Nautica and so he gets his name from that and it's used you've mystically earlier in Genesis for sexual intimacy as well so it is movement so he's so she's hinting at what is in intention was there so not also that she

not mentions his she mentions his race that he's a Hebrew so she's clearly trying to get her servants on board with her by emphasizing this foreigner trying to engage in some credible and intimate relationship with an Egyptian and how rigid one should be about interesting the parallel with Mossad in Saddam and the outrage of the Egyptian police at him the outsider who killed one of theirs yeah really interesting yeah but what's okay so there's so much going on here and this is gonna be a scatterbrain sir please so so notice that she's going to say

virtually the same thing a few verses later everything that she said now she's just going to repeat it almost moved him to her husband when he comes back what you see is the her flies in flying no is that just me explain the silence no it I think he's just having a little moment okay wait how long have you been on can you tell internet 38 minutes all right I'm gonna call this a day because he's really excited about this and I want him to gather his thoughts on this and we're gonna come back same

time same place tomorrow yeah it sure what do you say inshallah so hopefully we'll have a smoother connection then but this is pretty awesome I'm allow social accept and give us clarity of his revelation barakallahu li walakum so he will talk to you soon sake I know you can't hear me but may the force yeah of the Internet be with you okay