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Sura 12
Aya 51
51
قالَ ما خَطبُكُنَّ إِذ راوَدتُنَّ يوسُفَ عَن نَفسِهِ ۚ قُلنَ حاشَ لِلَّهِ ما عَلِمنا عَلَيهِ مِن سوءٍ ۚ قالَتِ امرَأَتُ العَزيزِ الآنَ حَصحَصَ الحَقُّ أَنا راوَدتُهُ عَن نَفسِهِ وَإِنَّهُ لَمِنَ الصّادِقينَ

Muhammad Asad

[Thereupon the King sent for those women; and when they came,] he asked: "What was it that you hoped to achieve when you sought to make Joseph yield himself unto you?"1 The women asnwered: "God save us! We did not perceive the least evil [intention] on his part!" [And] the wife of Joseph's former master2 exclaimed: "Now has the truth come to light! It was I who sought to make him yield himself unto me - whereas he, behold, was indeed speaking the truth!"
  • Evidently, the King wanted to find out whether they had previously been encouraged by Joseph, or whether he was truly innocent. The noun khatb denotes "something that one has in view" or "desires" or "seeks to obtain"; and so the expression and khatbukunna (lit., "what was it that you [really] had in view") may be suitably rendered as above.
  • Lit., "the wife of the great one (al-aziz)".