55 Preface قالَ اجعَلني عَلىٰ خَزائِنِ الأَرضِ ۖ إِنّي حَفيظٌ عَليمٌYusuf Ali(Joseph) said: “Set me over the storehouses1 of the land: I will indeed guard them, as one that knows (their importance).”Joseph had been given plenary authority by the king. He could have enjoyed his dignity, drawn his emoluments, put the hard and perhaps unpopular work on the shoulders of others, and kept to himself the glitter and the kudos. But that was not his way, nor can it indeed be the way of anyone who wants to do real service. He undertook the hardest and most unpopular task himself. Such a task was that of organising reserves in times of plenty, against the lean years to come. He deliberately asked to be put in charge of the granaries and storehouses, and the drudgery of establishing them and guarding them, for the simple reason that he understood that need better than anyone else, and was prepared to take upon himself rather than throw on to another the obloquy of restricting supplies in times of plenty.