قَالَ مَا خَطْبُكُنَّ إِذْ رَٰوَدتُّنَّ يُوسُفَ عَن نَّفْسِهِۦ قُلْنَ حَٰشَ لِلَّهِ مَا عَلِمْنَا عَلَيْهِ مِن سُوٓءٍ قَالَتِ ٱمْرَأَتُ ٱلْعَزِيزِ ٱلْـَٰٔنَ حَصْحَصَ ٱلْحَقُّ أَنَا۠ رَٰوَدتُّهُۥ عَن نَّفْسِهِۦ وَإِنَّهُۥ لَمِنَ ٱلصَّٰدِقِينَ
"The king said: 'What was your business when you sought to get Joseph against his will?' They said: 'God forbid! We know no evil of him.' The vizier's wife said: 'Now the truth has come out. It was I who sought to get him against his will; and he is indeed one of the truthful.'"
The construction was analysed at al-Dhāriyāt 51/31-34 (fa-mā khaṭbukum ayyuha'l-mursalūn), and this verse was cited there:
The Qurʾān always uses this word inside a question: "You women, what is your business?" (Yūsuf 12/51); "Sāmirī, what is your business?" (Ṭāhā 20/95); "You two women, what is your business?" (al-Qaṣaṣ 28/23).
I rely on that treatment. The root خ-ط-ب: to address, to speak; and an important affair. Khuṭba is from the same root.
The root ح-ص-ص: a portion, a share; and to separate a thing out and bring it to light. Ḥiṣṣa — a share. The verb comes here in the form ḥaṣḥaṣa: a pattern built by repeating the two syllables of a root (in morphology this is called the rubāʿī muḍāʿaf, the reduplicated quadriliteral).
| Explanation | Image |
|---|---|
| 1 | Ḥiṣṣa — a share. What was mixed has been separated out, and each one's share has become clear |
| 2 | To come out, to settle. It came out from under the covering and found its place |
Both explanations are transmitted by the lexicographers and come to the same place: separation and becoming visible.
And the pattern itself is worth noting: a reduplicated root (ḥaṣ-ḥaṣa) generally conveys motion and force in Arabic. That is, the truth comes out not slowly but at once and decisively.
ٱلْـَٰٔنَ — "now". Bringing the adverb of time to the head of the sentence conveys emphasis. And this must be read together with the sūra's scale of time: the event took place in verses 25-29; the admission comes here. Between them lie the years of prison.
I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the distance between the verses: the sūra tells the coming out of the truth by delaying it. And this delay is repeated throughout the structure of the sūra — the dream is seen in verse 4 and fulfilled in verse 100.
And the form of the admission is worth recording: two sentences. The first is the admission of her own act (ana rāwadtuhu), the second the vindication of the other party (wa-innahu la-mina'ṣ-ṣādiqīn).
I give this as an observation about the structure: the admission does not end with accepting the guilt — the name of the one slandered is cleared as well. The two things are done separately.