وَرَٰوَدَتْهُ ٱلَّتِى هُوَ فِى بَيْتِهَا عَن نَّفْسِهِۦ وَغَلَّقَتِ ٱلْأَبْوَٰبَ وَقَالَتْ هَيْتَ لَكَ قَالَ مَعَاذَ ٱللَّهِ إِنَّهُۥ رَبِّىٓ أَحْسَنَ مَثْوَاىَ إِنَّهُۥ لَا يُفْلِحُ ٱلظَّٰلِمُونَ
Wa-rāwadat'hu'llatī huwa fī baytihā ʿan nafsihi wa-ghallaqati'l-abwāba wa-qālat hayta lak · Qāla maʿādha'llāhi innahu rabbī aḥsana mathwāya innahu lā yufliḥu'ẓ-ẓālimūn
"The woman in whose house he was pressed him against his will; she bolted the doors and said, 'Come, you!' He said: 'God forbid! He is my master; he treated me well. Wrongdoers do not prosper.'"
In this section, per the method (Method), I proceed only with the wording the Qurʾān gives. In the classical commentaries and in the story collections a great many details are told around this scene; most of them come from the Isrāʾīliyyāt and have no counterpart in the Qurʾān. The woman's name, the state of the room, additional speeches in the scene — none of this is in the Qurʾān, and none of it will be used in this commentary.
The root is ر-و-د, and this construction was analysed in detail at al-Qamar 54/37 (wa-la-qad rāwadūhu ʿan ḍayfihi). What was recorded there:
Root: ر-و-د. Its concrete sense: to go back and forth in search of a thing, to range about. Rād — the scout who seeks pasture. Rāʾid — the one sent out on behalf of a people to look for a place. Irāda — to want; to turn towards a thing. The verb is on the pattern of Form III (mufāʿala): rāwada. This form conveys continuity and mutual pressing: not to want once, but to want repeatedly, insistently. And the key to the pattern is the particle: عَنْ. Rāwada fulānan ʿan shayʾin — to try to get someone away from a thing, to press him in order to detach him from it.
I rely on that treatment, and I wish to gather the three layers of meaning in the root here, because the fineness of the word determines this whole scene:
| Layer | Where it comes from | What it adds to the scene |
|---|---|---|
| Softness | Rāʾid — the scout who seeks pasture; he advances by searching, not by force | The demand is built by approach, not as open coercion |
| Repetition | Form III (mufāʿala) — not once but continuous | Not a single moment but a repeated process |
| Detachment | The particle ʿan — to separate from a thing | The aim is to take the person out of where he stands |
And at al-Najm 53/29-30 the irāda form of the same root was treated: irāda carries the idea of searching in its root. I rely on that treatment.
The distribution of the verb through the sūra must be recorded — it occurs four times, and in two separate domains:
| Verse | Expression | Who | What is sought |
|---|---|---|---|
| 23 | Rāwadat'hu … ʿan nafsihi | The mistress of the house | The person himself |
| 30 | Turāwidu fatāhā ʿan nafsihi | (As reported by the women of the city) | The same |
| 32, 51 | Rāwadtuhu ʿan nafsihi | The woman's own admission | The same |
| 61 | Sa-nurāwidu ʿanhu abāh | The brothers | To detach the brother from the father |
The sixty-first verse is worth recording: the same verb, with the same particle, is used of an entirely different matter — the effort to persuade the father to send his son. That is, the word carries no moral verdict in the sūra: it names a form of insistence. I record this as my own reading; its ground is that the two uses stand in the same pattern.
And the point of word order is here: the verse does not name the woman, nor describe her by an attribute. Allatī huwa fī baytihā — "the woman in whose house he was".
I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the mode of description chosen: the woman is described by reference to Joseph's position. And this places the real matter of the scene inside the sentence: the matter is the person in whose house he is. Indeed Joseph's answer will press on exactly this point: innahu rabbī aḥsana mathwāya.
غَلَّقَتِ ٱلْأَبْوَٰبَ — Form II (taktīr, not taqlīl): he shut the doors fast and one by one. The simple pattern would have been aghlaqa. The doubled pattern conveys both multiplicity (there is more than one door) and force.
هَيْتَ لَكَ — in Arabic a noun-verb: "come, now". Differences are transmitted in the reading of the word (hīta, haytu and the like); since they do not change the meaning, I do not go into their detail.
maʿādh (معاذ): a place of refuge, a shelter. Maʿādha'llāh — "I take refuge in God", the English "God forbid". It occurs in the Qurʾān from Joseph's mouth: "Maʿādha'llāh!" (Yūsuf 12/23).
I rely on that treatment. The pattern is a mafʿūl muṭlaq whose verb has been elided: aʿūdhu maʿādha'llāh — "I take refuge in God with a taking of refuge".
And the same expression will occur once more in the sūra: in verse 79, when it is proposed that Joseph take another in place of his brother. In both places what is refused is complicity in a wrong. This is a repetition verifiable within the sūra.
The word rabbī in this sentence was treated as a note on language in al-Fātiḥa:
The word "Rabb", used alone and without a genitive, is used only of God. Of a human being it can be used only in a genitive construction — in the story of Joseph the word occurs when he says to his prison companion "mention me to your master" (Yūsuf 12/42), but always in annexation to something.
| Reading | Who rabbī is |
|---|---|
| 1 | The master of the house — "my master treated me well"; the ground of the refusal is not to betray a trust |
| 2 | God — "my Lord gave me a good place"; the ground of the refusal is not to be ungrateful for a favour |
This is worth recording and is verifiable from the text: in the twenty-first verse the master of the house had said akrimī mathwāhu. In the twenty-third verse Joseph says aḥsana mathwāya — the same word, two verses apart. This overlap is an indication supporting the first reading. I record it as an indication, not as a preference.