The Story of Joseph in Arabic Verse
The Story of Joseph in Arabic Verse is the editorial title given to a poetic retelling of the story of Joseph the son of Jacob and Rachel based on the koranic account in sura 12 (Yusuf), the only instance in the Quran in which an entire chapter is devoted to a complete story of a prophet. The poem is in the "ṭawīl" metre and rhymes on -"r". In its current fragmentary state, 469 lines ("abyāt") survive. Its language suggests an origin in Egypt in the Middle Arabic period. The poem is one of  a large number of medieval retellings of the Joseph story across the Abrahamic religions, among them the fourteenth-century Turkish morality play about Joseph by Sheyyad Hamza. Manuscript. One manuscript of the poem is known, though the editors noted evidence of similar content in Cairo, Dār al-Kutub, MS 9205, and speculated that 'it may contain the text of a poem similar to ours'. The manuscript is held the Brotherton Library of the University of Leeds as Department of Arabic, Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies MSS Collection, MS 347. In its present state, it comprises thirty-two, 15x10.5 cm folios , unbound. The text is extensively vocalised, with some rubrications, and laid out in single columns, fifteen lines per page. The folios are unbound and represent only part of the original MS. The editors speculate that it dates from the thirteenth or fourteenth century CE. Sample passage. In the following passage, lines 137–46, Jacob interrogates a wolf which Jacob's sons have captured and which they claim has eaten Joseph: