He said: “They will be the first thing to flow over my face in my grave.”
She said: “How beautiful your face is!”
He said: “It belongs to the earth, which will consume it.” (1)
It was also said that she said: “A bed of silk has been laid out, so rise and fulfill my desire.”
He said: “Then my share of Paradise will be lost.”
She continued to entice him and invite him to pleasure, while he was a young man experiencing the sexual desire of youth that any man experiences, and she was a beautiful and attractive woman. At length, he yielded somewhat to her because of the passion he saw in her and desired her. Then Allah Most High came to the aid of His servant and Prophet with the proof He mentioned. (2)
Some later scholars claimed that this was not befitting the state of the prophets, peace be upon them. (3) They said: “The statement ends at His words, ‘She certainly desired him.’ Then the account concerning Joseph, peace be upon him, begins anew: ‘And he would have desired her had he not seen the proof of his Lord’—with the order of the words reversed. That is, had he not seen the proof of his Lord, he would have desired her; but he saw the proof and therefore did not desire her.”
The grammarians rejected this and said: “The Arabs do not place lawlā (had it not been for) after the verb. Thus, one does not say, ‘I certainly stood—had it not been for Zayd,’ (4) when what is meant is, ‘Had it not been for Zayd, I would certainly have stood.’” (5)
It was also said: She desired Joseph in order that he might lie with her, while Joseph desired her, meaning that he wished for her to become his wife.
(1) See Tafsir al-Tabari, 16:34.
(2) Reported by al-Tabari in the passage cited above.
(3) Ibn Atiyyah proposed the view that this occurred before Yusuf's prophethood. He wrote in al-Muharrar al-Wajiz, 7:477-478: “What I maintain regarding this verse is that no sound or widely corroborated report establishes that Yusuf was a prophet at the time of this occurrence. If that is so, then he was a believer who had been given judgment and knowledge. He may therefore have had the inclination that consists of intending something without actually doing it, and may have continued to entertain an evil thought, despite the sin involved in this. Even if we assume that he was a prophet at that time, then, in my view, nothing is permissible for him except the inclination that is merely a passing thought. Nothing of what has been mentioned, such as untying a waistband-cord and the like, can be soundly attributed to him, for prophethood entails infallibility. As for the report that he was told, ‘Will you be listed among the prophets yet commit the deeds of fools?’ its meaning is only that he was promised prophethood later on. Inclination toward something has two degrees: the first may occur in a prophet, whereas the greater second degree can occur only in one who is not a prophet, because persisting in the thought of sin and taking pleasure in it is itself a sin that is recorded...”
Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah wrote in Daqaiq al-Tafsir, 3:272-273: “Hamm is a generic term comprising two types, as Imam Ahmad said: hamm is of two kinds: passing thoughts and resolute determination. It is established in the Sahih that the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, said: ‘If a servant contemplates an evil deed, it is not recorded against him; and if he abandons it for Allah’s sake, a good deed is recorded for him.’ ... Yusuf had an inclination which he abandoned for Allah’s sake; thus Allah turned evil and indecency away from him because of his sincerity ... As for what is related about his loosening his trousers and assuming the position of a man with a woman, or that he saw the image of Yaqub biting his hand, and similar reports, none of this was reported by Allah or His Messenger. Whatever was not so reported was taken from the Jews, who are among the people most given to lying about and maligning the prophets. Every Muslim who has transmitted such reports took them from the Jews. Not a single letter of this was transmitted from our Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him.”
(4) In manuscript B: hammat (she intended).
(5) Omitted from manuscript B.