“He said, ‘Allah forbid that we should take anyone except the one with whom we found our property! We would then surely be wrongdoers.’”

So Joseph said, “Allah forbid that we should take anyone except the one with whom we found our property!” That is, it would be wrongdoing on our part to take an innocent person for the offense of the one with whom we found our property. He did not say, “the one who stole it,” taking every precaution to avoid lying. “We would then”—that is, if we took anyone other than the one in whose baggage it was found—“surely be wrongdoers,” for we would have imposed the penalty where it did not belong.