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Sūrah xxi. 83, 84: “And remember Job: when he cried to his Lord, ‘Truly evil hath touched me: but Thou art the most merciful of those who show mercy.’ So we heard him, and lightened the burden of his woe; and we gave him back his family, and as many more with them,—a mercy from us, and a memorial for those who serve us.”

Sūrah xxxviii. 40–44: “And remember our servant Job when he cried to his Lord, ‘Verily, Satan hath laid on me disease and pain.’ ‘Stamp,’ said we, ‘with thy foot. This is to wash with; cool, and to drink.’ And we gave him back his family, and as many more with them in our mercy; and for a monition to men of judgment. And we said, ‘Take in thine hand a rod, and strike with it, nor break thine oath.’ Verily, we found him patient! How excellent a servant, one who turned to us, was he!”

Mr. Sale, following the commentators al-Jalālān and al-Baiẓāwī, says: “The Muḥammadan writers tell us that Job was of the race of Esau, and was blessed with a numerous family and abundant riches; but that God proved him by taking away all that he had, even his children, who were killed by the fall of a house: notwithstanding which, he continued to serve God and to return Him thanks as usual; that he was then struck with a filthy disease, his body being full of worms and so offensive that as he lay on the dunghill none could bear to come near him: that his wife, however (whom some call Raḥmeh the daughter of Ephraim the son of Joseph, and others Makhir the daughter of Manasses), attended him with great patience, supporting him with what she earned by her labour; but that the devil appearing to her one day, after having reminded her of her past prosperity, promised her that if she would worship him he would restore all they had lost: whereupon she asked her husband’s consent, who was so angry at the proposal, that he swore, if he recovered, to give his wife a hundred stripes; and that after his affliction his wealth increased, his wife also becoming young and handsome again, and bearing him twenty-six sons. Some, to express the great riches which were bestowed on Job after his sufferings, say he had two threshing-floors, one for wheat and the other for barley, and that God sent two clouds, which rained gold on the one and silver on the other till they ran over.

“A recital of thy Lord’s mercy to his servant Zacharias; when he called upon his Lord with secret calling, and said: ‘O Lord, verily my bones are weakened, and the hoar hairs glisten on my head, and never, Lord, have I prayed to Thee with ill success. But now I have fears for my kindred after me; and my wife is barren: give me, then, a successor as Thy special gift, who shall be my heir and an heir of the family of Jacob: and make him, Lord, well pleasing to Thee.’ ‘O Zacharias! verily we announce to thee a son,—his name John: that name We have given to none before him.’ He said: ‘O my Lord! how when my wife is barren shall I have a son, and when I have now reached old age, failing in my powers?’ He said: ‘So shall it be. Thy Lord hath said, Easy is this to me, for I created thee aforetime when thou wast nothing.’ He said: ‘Vouchsafe me, O my Lord! a sign.’ He said: ‘Thy sign shall be that for three nights, though sound in health, thou speakest not to man.’ And he came forth from the sanctuary to his people, and made signs to them to sing praises morn and even. We said: ‘O John! receive the Book with purpose of heart’:—and We bestowed on him wisdom while yet a child; and mercifulness from Ourself, and purity; and pious was he, and duteous to his parents; and not proud, rebellious. And peace was on him on the day he was born, and the day of his death, and shall be on the day when he shall be raised to life!”

Sūrah xxi. 89: “And Zacharias; when he called upon his Lord saying, ‘O my Lord, leave me not childless: but there is no better heir than Thyself.’ So we heard him, and gave him John, and we made his wife fit for child-bearing. Verily, these vied in goodness, and called upon us with love and fear, and humbled themselves before us.”

Anas relates that the Prophet said to an old woman, “No old woman will enter Paradise.” The old woman said “Why?” And the Prophet said, “Because it is written in the Qurʾān (Sūrah lvi. 35) ‘We have made them virgins.’ There will be no old women in heaven.” (Mishkāt, book xxii. ch. xii.)

Sūrah xxxvii. 139–148: “Jonas, too, was one of the Apostles (mursalīn), when he fled unto the laden ship, and lots were cast, and he was doomed, and the fish swallowed him, for he was blameworthy. But had he not been of those who praise Us, in its belly had he surely remained, till the day of resurrection. And we cast him on the bare shore—and he was sick;—and we caused a gourd-plant to grow up over him, and we sent him to a hundred thousand persons, or even more, and because they believed, we continued their enjoyments for a season.”

Sūrah lxviii. 48–50: “Patiently then await the judgment of thy Lord, and be not like him who was in the fish (Ṣāḥibu ʾl-Ḥūt), when in deep distress he cried to God. Had not favour from his Lord reached him, cast forth would he have been on the naked shore, overwhelmed with shame: but his Lord chose him and made him of the just.”

Sūrah x. 98 (called the Sūratu Yūnus): “Verily they against whom the decree of thy Lord is pronounced, shall not believe, even though every kind of sign come unto them, till they behold the dolorous torment! Were it otherwise, any city, had it believed, might have found its safety in its faith. But it was so, only with the people of Jonas. When they believed, we delivered them from the penalty of shame in this world, and provided for them for a time. But if thy Lord had pleased, verily all who are in the earth would have believed together. What! wilt thou compel men to become believers?”

Sūrah xxi. 87: “And Ẕū ʾn-Nūn (he of the fish), when he went on his way in anger, and thought that we had no power over him. But in the darkness he cried, ‘There is no God but Thou: Glory be unto Thee! Verily, I have been one of the evil doers’: so we heard him and rescued him from misery: for thus rescue we the faithful.”

[Sale, in his Notes on the Qurʾān, quoting from al-Jalālān and al-Baiẓāwī, says: “When Jonah first began to exhort the people to repentance, instead of hearkening to him, they used him very ill, so that he was obliged to leave the city, threatening them at his departure that they should be destroyed within three days, or, as others say, within forty. But when the time drew near, and they saw the heavens overcast with a black cloud which shot forth fire and filled the air with smoke and hung directly over the city, they were in a terrible consternation, and getting into the fields, with their families and cattle, they put on sackcloth and humbled themselves before God, calling aloud for pardon and sincerely repenting of their past wickedness. Whereupon God was pleased to forgive them, and the storm blew over. It is said that the fish, after it had swallowed Jonah, swam after the ship with its head above water, that the prophet might breathe; who continued to praise God till the fish came to land and vomited him out. Some imagine Jonah’s plant to have been a fig; and others, the móz (or banana), which bears very large leaves and excellent fruit, and that this plant withered the next morning, and that Jonah being much concerned at it God made a remonstrance to him in behalf of the Ninevites, agreeably to what is recorded in Scripture.”]

JORDAN. Arabic Ardan, Urdunn (اردن). Referring to Sūrah iii. 39, the legend is that the priests threw lots, by casting arrows into the river Jordan, as to which should take charge of the Virgin Mary after the Annunciation. “Thou wert not by them when they threw their lots which of them should take care of Mary, nor wert thou by them when they did dispute.”

The account of Joseph occupies a whole chapter in the Qurʾān, entitled the Chapter of Yūsuf (Sūrah xii.). Al-Baiẓāwī says that certain Jews instigated the Quraish to inquire of Muḥammad the story of Joseph and his family going into Egypt, and that in order to prove the truth of his mission, God sent Muḥammad this chapter, the Sūratu Yūsuf, from heaven. The same writer says it is a most meritorious chapter, for whosoever shall read it and teach it to others shall have an easy death. (See al-Baiẓāwī in loco.)

The story of Yūsuf wa Zulaik͟hah is one of the most popular love songs in the East. It was produced in Persian verse by Nūru ʾd-dīn ʿAbdu ʾr-Raḥmān ibn Aḥmad Jāmī, A.H. 898. And the Shaik͟h Ḥamdu ʾllāh ibn Shamsi ʾd-dīn Muḥammad (A.H. 909), rendered it into Turkī verse.

The author of the Ak͟hlāq-i-Jalālī says: “We have it amongst the sayings of Muḥammad that women should be forbidden to read or listen to the history of Joseph (as told in the Qurʾān), lest it lead to their swerving from the rule of chastity.” (Thompson’s edition.)

We give the account as told in the Qurʾān, with the commentators’ remarks in italics, as rendered by Mr. Lane in his Selections from the Kuran (new ed. by Mr. S. Lane Poole), the account of Joseph’s temptation, which Mr. Lane omits, being added from Rodwell’s translation of the Qurʾān:—

“Remember, when Joseph said unto his father, O my father, verily I saw in sleep eleven stars and the sun and the moon: I saw them making obeisance unto me. He replied, O my child, relate not thy vision to thy brethren, lest they contrive a plot against thee, knowing its interpretation to be that they are the stars and that the sun is thy mother and the moon thy father; for the devil is unto man a manifest enemy. And thus, as thou sawest, thy Lord will choose thee, and teach thee the interpretation of events, or dreams, and will accomplish his favour upon thee by the gift of prophecy, and upon the family of Jacob, as He accomplished it upon thy fathers before, Abraham and Isaac; for thy Lord is knowing and wise.—Verily in the history of Joseph and his brethren are signs to the inquirers.—When they (the brethren of Joseph) said, one to another, Verily Joseph and his brother Benjamin are dearer unto our father than we, and we are a number of men; verily our father is in a manifest error; slay ye Joseph, or drive him away into a distant land; so the face of your father shall be directed alone unto you, regarding no other, and ye shall be after it a just people:—a speaker among them, namely, Judah, said, Slay not Joseph, but throw him to the bottom of the well; then some of the travellers may light upon him, if ye do this. And they were satisfied therewith. They said, O our father, wherefore dost thou not intrust us with Joseph, when verily we are faithful unto him?

Send him with us to-morrow into the plain, that he may divert himself and sport; and we will surely take care of him.—He replied, Verily your taking him away will grieve me, and I fear lest the wolf devour him while ye are heedless of him. They said, Surely if the wolf devour him, when we are a number of men, we shall in that case be indeed weak. So he sent him with them. And when they went away with him, and agreed to put him at the bottom of the well, they did so. They pulled off his shirt, after they had beaten him, and had treated him with contempt and had desired to slay him; and they let him down; and when he had arrived half-way down the well they let him fall, that he might die; and he fell into the water. He then betook himself to a mass of rock; and they called to him; so he answered them, imagining that they would have mercy upon him. They however desired to crush him with a piece of rock; but Judah prevented them. And We said unto him by revelation, while he was in the well (and he was seventeen years of age, or less), to quiet his heart, Thou shalt assuredly declare unto them this their action, and they shall not know thee at the time. And they came to their father at nightfall weeping. They said, O our father, we went to run races, and left Joseph with our clothes, and the wolf devoured him; and thou wilt not believe us, though we speak truth. And they brought false blood upon his shirt.

“And travellers came on their way from Midian to Egypt, and alighted near the well; and they sent their drawer of water, and he let down his bucket into the well: so Joseph caught hold upon it, and the man drew him forth; and when he saw him, he said, O good news! This is a young man!—And his brethren thereupon knew his case: wherefore they came unto him, and they concealed his case, making him as a piece of merchandise; for they said, He is our slave who hath absconded. And Joseph was silent, fearing lest they should slay him. And God knew that which they did. And they sold him for a mean price, [for] some dirhems counted down, twenty, or two-and-twenty; and they were indifferent to him. The travellers then brought him to Egypt, and he who had bought him sold him for twenty deenárs and a pair of shoes and two garments. And the Egyptian who bought him, namely, Kit̤feer (Qit̤fīr or It̤fīr), said unto his wife Zeleekha (Zalīk͟hā), Treat him hospitably; peradventure he may be advantageous to us or we may adopt him as a son. For he was childless. And thus We prepared an establishment for Joseph in the land of Egypt, to teach him the interpretation of events, or dreams; for God is well able to effect His purpose; but the greater number of men, namely, the unbelievers, know not this. And when he had attained his age of strength (thirty years, or three-and-thirty), We bestowed on him wisdom and knowledge in matters of religion, before he was sent as a prophet; for thus do We recompense the well-doers.” (Sūrah xii. 4–22.)

“And when she heard of their cabal, she sent to them and got ready a banquet for them, and gave each one of them a knife, and said, ‘Joseph shew thyself to them.’ And when they saw him they were amazed at him, and cut their hands, and said, ‘God keep us! This is no man! This is no other than a noble angel!’