She laid on for them a reception suited to ladies of their station and, among the fare, placed something that must be cut with knives—such as citron and the like. She then handed every one of them a knife, while she had already prepared Joseph, peace be upon him, dressing him in the finest garments at the very bloom of his youth, and ordered him to appear before them in that state.
He emerged more radiant than the full moon itself. “When they saw him, they exalted him,” that is, they reverenced and stood in awe of him; they had never imagined that anyone of the children of Adam could look like this. His beauty so dazzled them that they forgot themselves and went on slicing their own hands with those knives, unaware of the wounds, exclaiming, “Allah forbid! This is no mortal; he is but a noble angel.”
In the ḥadīth of the Night Journey it is related: “I passed by Joseph, and he had been granted half of all beauty.”
Al-Suhaylī and other leading scholars explain that this means he possessed half the beauty of Adam, peace be upon him, for Allah fashioned Adam with His own hand and breathed into him of His spirit, placing him at the pinnacle of human splendor. The people of Paradise shall enter it in the stature and beauty of Adam. Joseph, then, held half of Adam’s beauty, and no one between the two surpassed them, just as no woman after Eve resembled her more than Sarah, the wife of Abraham—upon them all be peace.
Ibn Masʿūd said: Joseph’s face was like a flash of lightning, and when a woman came to him with a need he would cover his face. Others reported that he usually kept himself veiled so people would not see him. For this reason the women excused the minister’s wife for her passion, and what befell them—cutting their hands and bleeding from the knives, the awe and stupefaction that overtook them at the sight of him—transpired as it did.
She said, “This is the one for whose sake you blamed me.” She then praised his perfect chastity, saying: “I certainly tried to seduce him, but he held firm. Yet if he does not do what I command, he shall surely be imprisoned and will be among the humiliated.”
The other women urged him to obey his mistress, but he refused most emphatically, keeping his distance, for he was of the lineage of prophets. He then prayed, saying to the Lord of all worlds: “My Lord, prison is dearer to me than that to which they invite me; but if You do not turn their scheme away from me, I may incline toward them and become of the ignorant.” In other words, if You leave me to myself, I possess only weakness and incapacity; I control neither benefit nor harm for myself except as You will. I am feeble unless You strengthen, protect, and preserve me, enveloping me in Your power and might.
Therefore Allah says: “So his Lord answered him and turned their plot away from him; indeed, He is the All-Hearing, the All-Knowing. Then, after they had seen the signs, it occurred to them to imprison him for a time. Two young men entered the prison with him; one of them said, ‘I saw myself pressing wine,’ and the other said, ‘I saw myself carrying bread on my head from which birds were eating—inform us of its interpretation, for we see you are one of the righteous.’ He replied, ‘No food will be brought to either of you but that I will inform you of its interpretation before it comes to you—that is part of what my Lord has taught me—indeed, I have left …’