and they set upon you with the lies they had deliberately contrived—for the very nature of aggressors is to act by design.

They left no avenue unexplored that might help them reach the goal they had fixed and emphatically affirmed;

whatever lay before them they pursued, exerting their utmost; yet you found felicity, while they shall never prosper.

When at last they despaired of attaining the prize that all of them had sought and aimed for,

they grew afraid of your might, and unanimously resolved to consign you to prison and keep you there forever.

But your Lord refused to let them obtain from you what they desired; can the purpose of a wrongdoer ever thrive?

Your affair was none other than the affair of Joseph, whose legacy the All-Generous, the Ever-Bountiful, has bestowed upon you (1).

Through it you rose by spiritual discipline to heights beyond what you yourself might have chosen, and the source became limpid before you.

Then the days of your seclusion came to an end—days by which loftiness was perfected and full nobility attained.

You emerged like pure gold leaving the forge, baffling even the master assayer who tests it.

You appeared like the radiant dawn when it breaks upon the horizon and the black darkness is scattered.

Your fame spread like a keen, unsheathed sword that, though it strikes no heads of foes, is never returned to its scabbard.

It was then that assemblies for debate were convened—assemblies they had wished would never be convened.

They shrank from disputing you out of fear; their opinions wavered, and they were proven groundless (2).

Yet when they were ordered to proceed and were certain that Thursday was fixed, the appointed time beyond dispute,

they mustered their throngs against you, banded together, sprang up, crowded in, and stripped for the encounter.