The Quran

وَلَقَد جاءَكُم يوسُفُ مِن قَبلُ بِالبَيِّناتِ فَما زِلتُم في شَكٍّ مِمّا جاءَكُم بِهِ ۖ حَتّىٰ إِذا هَلَكَ قُلتُم لَن يَبعَثَ اللَّهُ مِن بَعدِهِ رَسولًا ۚ كَذٰلِكَ يُضِلُّ اللَّهُ مَن هُوَ مُسرِفٌ مُرتابٌ

Muhammad Asad

"And [remember:] it was to you that Joseph came aforetime with all evidence of the truth; but you never ceased to throw doubt on all [the messages] that he brought you - so much so that when he died, you said, 'Never will God send any apostle [even] after him!'¹ "In this way God lets go astray such as waste their own selves by throwing suspicion [on His revelations] -

Thus not only refusing to acknowledge Joseph's prophethood, but also denying the possibility of any prophet being sent by God (Zamakhshari). It would seem that Joseph had been accepted in Egypt as a prophet only by the ruling class, the Hyksos, who were of Arab origin; spoke a language closely related to Hebrew (cf. surah 12, note 44), and were, therefore, emotionally and culturally predisposed towards the spirit of Joseph's mission, while the rest of the population was and remained hostile to the faith preached by him.