The king said, “Who can do this for me? Who will gather it, sell it, and relieve me of the work involved?”

“Joseph said, ‘Appoint me over the storehouses of the land. Indeed, I am a knowledgeable guardian.’” (55)

Thus Joseph said, “Appoint me over the storehouses of the land.” Storehouses is the plural of storehouse, and he meant the storehouses of food and wealth; the land refers to the land of Egypt—that is, the storehouses of your land.

Al-Rabi‘ ibn Anas said: “Over the land-tax revenue and income of Egypt.”

“Indeed, I am a knowledgeable guardian”: that is, a guardian of the storehouses, knowledgeable of the ways in which they may best be managed. It was also said: “A knowledgeable guardian” (1) means one who can write and calculate.

And it was said: “A guardian of what you entrust to me, knowledgeable concerning what you place under my authority.”

And it was said: “A guardian in accounting, knowledgeable of languages; I know the language of everyone who comes to me.” (2)

Al-Kalbi said: “A careful manager in apportioning it during the years of plenty [in the barren land] (3), knowledgeable of when the famine will occur.” The king then said to him, “And who is more deserving of it than you?!” So he placed him in charge of it and said, “Today you are established in our presence, a man of rank and standing, entrusted with the storehouses.”

Abu Sa‘id al-Shurayhi informed us; Abu Ishaq al-Tha‘labi informed us; Abu ‘Abd Allah al-Husayn ibn Muhammad al-Fanjawi informed me; Makhlad ibn Ja‘far al-Baqarji narrated to us; al-Hasan ibn ‘Allawayh narrated to us; Isma‘il ibn ‘Isa narrated to us; Ishaq ibn Bishr narrated to us, from Juwaybir, from al-Dahhak, from Ibn ‘Abbas, may Allah be pleased with him, who said: The Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, said, “May Allah have mercy on my brother Joseph. Had he not said, ‘Appoint me over the storehouses of the land,’ the king would have appointed him from that very moment. But because of this, he delayed him for a year, and Joseph remained in his house for a year with the king.” (4)

With the same chain of transmission, Ibn ‘Abbas, may Allah be pleased with him, said: When a year had passed from the day on which he sought office, the king summoned him, crowned him [and girded him with his sword] (5), and placed for him a golden throne studded with pearls and rubies. He draped him in a robe of brocade. The throne was thirty cubits long and ten cubits wide, with thirty mattresses and sixty cushions upon it. Then he commanded him to emerge, and he came forth crowned, his complexion white as snow and his face like the moon; such was the clarity of his complexion that an onlooker could see his own face reflected in it. Then he proceeded