So they sent one of their number to draw water from the well. When he lowered his bucket, Joseph clung to it, and as soon as the man saw him he cried, “Good news! Here is a boy!” They concealed him as merchandise, pretending that he was only one of the slaves they had for trade. Yet Allah knew full well what they were doing—He knew the collusion of Joseph’s brothers and the secrecy of those who found him—though He did not disrupt it, for within these events lay immense wisdom, a prior decree, and mercy for the people of Egypt. This boy would enter their land as a captive slave, then hold the reins of power and bring them benefit in this world and the next beyond all measure or description.

When Joseph’s brothers realized that the caravan had taken him, they pursued the travelers and said, “This boy is ours; he ran away from us.” They sold him for a trifling sum—scant and insignificant, some say even counterfeit—“a few counted dirhams,” for they were indifferent to him.

Ibn Masʿūd, Ibn ʿAbbās, Nauf al-Bakālī, al-Suddi, Qatādah, and ʿAṭiyyah al-ʿAwfī said: they sold him for twenty dirhams, each brother taking two. Mujāhid said: twenty-two dirhams. ʿIkrimah and Muḥammad ibn Isḥāq said: forty dirhams. Allah knows best.

The Egyptian who bought him said to his wife, “Treat him honorably; perhaps he will benefit us, or we may adopt him as a son.” This was part of Allah’s subtle kindness, mercy, and favor toward Joseph, preparing him for the good He intended for him in both this world and the Hereafter.

They relate that the purchaser was Egypt’s ʿAzīz, the chief minister to whom the treasuries were entrusted. Ibn Isḥāq said his name was Iṭfīr ibn Ruḥayb, and that the king of Egypt at the time was al-Rayyān ibn al-Walīd, a man from the Amalekites.

He also said the ʿAzīz’s wife was named Rāʿīl bint Raʿyāʾīl. Others maintained her name was Zulaykhā—apparently a title—while yet another report calls her Fakkā bint Yānūs, as related by al-Thaʿālibī from Abū Hishām al-Rifāʿī.

Muḥammad ibn Isḥāq further reported—through Muḥammad ibn al-Sāʾib, from Abū Ṣāliḥ, from Ibn ʿAbbās—that the man who brought Joseph to Egypt and sold him there was Mālik ibn Zaʿr ibn Nuwayb ibn ʿAfaqā ibn Midyān ibn Abraham. Allah knows best.

Ibn Isḥāq also related, on the authority of Abū ʿUbaydah from Ibn Masʿūd, that the three most perceptive people ever were: the ʿAzīz of Egypt when he said to his wife, “Honor his lodging” (Yūsuf 21); the woman who said to her father about Moses, “My father, hire him, for the best one you can hire is the strong and trustworthy” (al-Qaṣaṣ 26); and Abū Bakr al-Ṣiddīq when he appointed ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb as his successor, may Allah be pleased with them.