It is related that he arranged for the king and his entourage to have food only once a day, at midday. (1) When the year of famine began, the king was the first to be afflicted by hunger. In the middle of the night, he cried out, “Joseph! Hunger, hunger!”

Joseph said, “Now is the time of famine.”

Thus, in the first of the years of drought, all that they had prepared during the fertile years was exhausted. The people of Egypt began buying food from Joseph. In the first year, he sold it to them for money, until not a dinar or dirham remained in Egypt except that he had taken it. In the second year, he sold it to them for ornaments and jewels, until nothing of these remained in the people’s hands. In the third year, he sold it to them for livestock and beasts of burden, until he had acquired all of them. In the fourth year, he sold it to them for male and female slaves, until no one had a male or female slave left. In the fifth year, he sold it to them for estates, properties, and houses, until he had acquired them. In the sixth year, he sold it to them for their children, until he had enslaved them. In the seventh year, he sold it to them for their very persons [until he had enslaved them], (2) and no free man or free woman remained in Egypt; all became his slaves.

The people said, “We have never seen a king more noble or greater than this king.”

Then Joseph said to the king, “What do you think of what my Lord has done with that which He entrusted to me? What is your view concerning this?”

The king replied, “The decision is yours, and we are subject to you.”

He said, “I call Allah and you to witness that I have freed every last person of Egypt and restored their possessions to them.” (3)

It is also related that Joseph did not eat his fill during those days. He was asked, “Do you go hungry while the storehouses of the land are in your hands?”

He replied, “I fear that, if I eat my fill, I may forget the hungry.” Joseph, peace be upon him, ordered the king’s cooks to serve his meal at midday. By this he intended that the king should experience the taste of hunger and thus not forget the hungry. It was for this reason that kings came to have their meal at midday.

He said: People came to Egypt from every direction to procure food. Joseph did not allow any of them—even if he were a person of high rank—to take more than a camel-load, so that it might be fairly apportioned among the people. The people crowded around him. The drought and hardship that afflicted people throughout the other lands also struck the land of Canaan and the lands of Syria. The same affliction that befell the people came upon Jacob, so he sent his sons to Egypt to obtain provisions, while keeping back Benjamin, Joseph’s brother by the same mother. This is the meaning of the Most High’s words: