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Joseph and
the Motif of the Garment of Joseph in the Qayyūm al-asmā' and other Bābī-Bahā'ī
Sacred Writings.
The story of Joseph the son of
Jacob-Israel is important in both the Bible (Genesis 37-50) and the
Qur'an (sūra 12). In these texts the account of this patriarch-prophet is
recounted in an extended fashion. The story of Joseph occupies much of the
latter half of the book of genesis and is the longest qur'anic narrative and
an aspect of the "best of stories" (ahṣan al-qasṣaṣ). In Sunnī and Shī`ī
Islamic sources Joseph is pre-eminently a model of righteous piety (al-siddiq)
and a paragon of handsome beauty (ḥusn; jamāl). The latter hagiographical
motif is, for example, indicated in the Shī`ī Tafsīr nūr al-thaqalayn
(`Commentary [expressive] of the Light of the Twin Weights') of al-Ḥuwayzī
(d. 1112/1700) where it is recorded that the sixth Twelver Imam, Abī `Abdu'llāh,
Ja`far al-ṣādiq (d. c. 126/743) stated that "Whoso reciteth the Sūra of
Joseph each day or during every night will be raised up by God on the Day of
Resurrection such that their beauty (jamāl) will be consonant with the
beauty of Joseph" (II:408).
The Garment of Joseph
In Genesis
37:3 the Hebrew phrase כְּתנֶת
פַּסִּים
ketonet passīm
is found. This Hebrew
phrase has been directly or indirectly translated in a variety of ways
in Abrahamic or Israelite-Jewish, Christian, Islamic and
related sacred scriptures and writings such as the Aramaic, Greek, Persian
and Arabic versions of the Bible. The
Authorized (King James Version, 1611CE) rendering "coat of many colours"
perhaps being the best known:
"[37:3] Now
Israel loved Joseph more than all his children, because he was
the son of his old age; and he made him a coat of many
colours."
This
possibly misleading translation actually reflects that of the ancient Greek
rendering in the Septuagint (LXX) which was widely used and `canonized' by early
Christians. Hence we read, = kitona poikilon ("coat of many colours").
It
is widely admitted by competent Hebraists among modern Biblical scholars
that the exact sense of the Hebrew phrase ketonet passīm
is unknown or uncertain.
It might indeed be indicative of some kind of ornamented cloak or tunic.
The Hebrew certainly indicates,
"some kind
of ostentatious garment such as would not normally be worn by a working
man. The only other place in the old Testament where the phrase occurs
is in 2 Sam. I3: 18‑19 where it is `the usual dress of unmarried
princesses'." (Davidson, CBC:218).
Add material here from
Islam, Babism and Baha'i writ...
In this paper it shall be clear that
Baha'u'llah as the Jamāl-i Mubarak ("Blessed Beauty") celebrated the beauty of
Joseph in a lengthy Arabic Tablet called the Surat al-Qamis (Surah of the
Robe").
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