Joseph
In the Name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate[12:53]
Yet I do not exculpate my own soul; verily the soul is ever inciting to evil, except that whereon my Lord has mercy. Truly my Lord is Forgiving, Merciful’.
[12:53]
And I do not absolve my inner self of blame. Surely, man’s inner self often incites to evil, unless my Lord shows mercy. Certainly, my Lord is the Most-Forgiving, Very-Merciful.”
[12:53]
And yet, I am not trying to absolve myself: for, verily, man’s inner self does incite [him] to evil, and saved are only they upon whom my Sustainer bestows His grace. Behold, my Sustainer is much-forgiving, a dispenser of grace!"
[12:53]
…verily the soul commandeth unto evil.... [M]
[12:53]
"Nor do I absolve my own self (of blame): the (human) soul is certainly
prone to evil, unless my Lord do bestow His Mercy: but surely my Lord is Oft-
forgiving, Most Merciful."
[12:53]
I do not exculpate myself. Lo! the (human) soul enjoineth unto
evil, save that whereon my Lord hath mercy. Lo! my Lord is Forgiving,
Merciful.
[12:53]
And I do not acquit myself. Indeed, the soul is a persistent enjoiner of evil, except those upon which my Lord has mercy. Indeed, my Lord is Forgiving and Merciful."
[12:53]
And I do not (claim) absolution of my self. Certainly, the self commands much evil except the one on whom my Lord bestows mercy. Surely, my Lord is All-Forgiving, Ever-Merciful.’
[12:53]
Yet I claim not that my soul was innocent -- surely the soul of man incites to evil -- except inasmuch as my Lord had mercy; truly my Lord is All-forgiving, All-compassionate.’
* v.53 : See n. 1712. 1 construe this verse to be a continuation of the speech of the wife of the ’Aziz. It is more appropriate to her than to Joseph.
* v.53 : Lit., “is indeed wont to command [the doing of] evil” – i.e., is filled with impulses which often conflict with what the mind regards as a moral good. This is obviously a reference to the statement in verse 24 above – “she desired him, and he desired her; [and he would have succumbed,] had he not seen [in this temptation] an evidence of his Sustainer’s truth” – as well as to Joseph’s prayer in verse 33, “unless Thou turn away their guile from me, I might yet yield to their allure.” (See also note 23 above.) Joseph’s stress on the weakness inherent in human nature is a sublime expression of humility on the part of one who himself had overcome that very weakness: for, as the sequence shows, he attributes his moral victory not to himself but solely to the grace and mercy of God.
* Lit., “except those upon whom...,” etc. According to most of the commentators, the pronoun mā (lit., “that which”) is here synonymous with man (“he who” or “those who”).
Sources Used
• Unpublished Material (1938-2005) [UM]
BOOKS
• The Book of Certainty (1952) [BC]
• A Sufi Saint of the Twentieth Century (1961) [SS]
• What is Sufism (1975) [WS]
• The Quranic Art of Calligraphy and Illumination (1976) [QACI]
• Muhammad (1983) [M]
• Symbol and Archetype (1991) [SA]
• Sufi Poems (2004) [SP]
• Mecca (2004) [Mec.]
• Return to the Spirit (2005) [RS]
• Splendours of Qur’an Calligraphy and Illumination (2005) [SQCI]
ARTICLES
• “Proofs of Islam”(1954). Islamic Cultural Centre. [PI]
• “The Islamic and Christian Conceptions of the March of Time” (1954) The Islamic Quarterly, Vol.1 No.4. [ICCT]
• “The Origins of Sufism (1956) The Islamic Quarterly, Vol.III No.1 [OS]
• “Sufism”: Religion in the Middle East (1969); ed.A.J. Arberry [S]
• “Sufi Answers to Questions On Ultimate Reality”: Studies in Comparative Religions 1979 Summer/Autumn [SCR-SA]
• “The Nature and Origin of Sufism”: Islamic Spirituality (1985) [NOS]
• “Mystical Poetry”: The Cambridge History of Arabic Literature, Vol.2 (1990) [MP]
LECTURES
• “The Quranic Doctrine of the Afterlife” [L-QD]
• “The Quranic Origins of Sufism” [L-QOS]
• “Human Origins and Destinies According to the Great Religions of the World” [L-HOD]
• “Metaphysics and the Perennial Philosophy” [L-MPP]
• “An Introduction to Islam” [L-II]
• “The Universality of the Quran” [L-UQ]
• Private Talks [L-PT]
Books without Quranic Ayaat
• Collected Poems
• Ancient Beliefs and Modern Superstitions
• The Eleventh Hour
• The Secret of Shakespeare
Articles without Quranic Ayaat
• “Signs of the Times”: Studies in Comparative Religions 1970 Winter
• “Ibn Aliwah” Encyclopedia of Islam, Second Edition
• “Kabd” Encyclopedia of Islam, Second Edition