The Quran

Preface

وَقالَ الَّذِي اشتَراهُ مِن مِصرَ لِامرَأَتِهِ أَكرِمي مَثواهُ عَسىٰ أَن يَنفَعَنا أَو نَتَّخِذَهُ وَلَدًا ۚ وَكَذٰلِكَ مَكَّنّا لِيوسُفَ فِي الأَرضِ وَلِنُعَلِّمَهُ مِن تَأويلِ الأَحاديثِ ۚ وَاللَّهُ غالِبٌ عَلىٰ أَمرِهِ وَلٰكِنَّ أَكثَرَ النّاسِ لا يَعلَمونَ

Yusuf Ali

The man in Egypt¹ who bought him, said to his wife: “Make his stay (among us) honourable:² may be he will bring us much good, or we shall adopt him as a son.” Thus did We establish Joseph in the land,³ that We might teach him the interpretation of stories⁴ (and events). And God hath full power and control over His affairs; but most among mankind know it not.⁵

Joseph is now clear of his jealous brethren in the land of Canaan. The merchants take him to Egypt. In the city of Memphis (or whatever was the Egyptian capital then) he was exposed for sale by the merchants. The merchants had not miscalculated. There was a ready market for him: his handsome presence, his winning ways, his purity and innocence, his intelligence and integrity, combined with his courtesy and noble manliness, attracted all eyes to him. There was the keenest competition to purchase him, and in the highest Court circles. Every competitor was outbid by a high court official, who is called in verse 30 below “the 'Aziz” (the Exalted in rank). (R).
See last note. The 'Aziz’s motive was perhaps worldly. Such a handsome, attractive, intelligent son would get him more honour, dignity, power and wealth. (R).
How unerringly God’s plan works! To teach Joseph wisdom and power, he had to be tested and proved in righteousness, and advanced in Egypt, and the way prepared for Israel and his posterity to proclaim God’s truth to the world and to make possible the subsequent missions of Moses and al Muṣṭafā (R).
Ahadith might be stories, things imagined or related, things that happened, in life or in true dreams. To suppose that phenomenal events are the only reality is a mark of one-sided materialism. As Hamlet said to Horatio, “there are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” External events have their own limited reality, but there are bigger realities behind them, and sometimes appear darkly in the visions of ordinary men, but more clearly in the visions of poets, seers, sages, and prophets. Joseph had to be trained in seeing the realities behind events and visions. He was hated by his brothers and sold by them into slavery: they were sending him into the land of Egypt, where he was to rule men. He loved his father dearly and was separated from him, and his mother had died early; but his affection was not blunted, but drawn to a keener edge when his benevolent work benefited millions in Egypt, and in the world. His own vision of star, sun, and moon prostrating themselves before him, was no idle dream of a selfish fool, but the prefigurernent of a power, which, used rightly, was to make his own honour an instrument of service to millions he had not seen, through men and women whose own power and dignity were sanctified through him. He was to understand the hidden meaning of what seemed futilities, blunderings, snares, evil plottings, love gone wrong, and power used tyrannically. He was to interpret truth to those who would never have reached it otherwise.
Cf.: “There is a divinity that shapes our ends, rough hew them as we will.” Only, in Shakespeare, (Hamlet, V. 2), we have a vague and distant ideal, an irresolute striving, an unsuccessful attempt at getting beyond “this too, too solid flesh"! In Joseph we have the Prophet of God, sure in faith, above all carnal motives, and advancing the destiny of mankind with a conscious purpose, as the scroll of knowledge, wisdom, and power, unfolds itself before him by the grace of God, All-Good and All-Powerful.