89 DOI: 10.4324/9781315885360-10 8 BIBLICAL PROPHETS Moses, Joseph, Jonah, and Job Roberto Tottoli Translated by Jason Welle Moses, Joseph, Jonah, and Job in the Qur’an In the economy of Qur’anic discourse, biblical prophets and the events of their lives are recounted or evoked in close connection with the importance of faith in the one Almighty God, with a role of support and a point of reference for Muhammad, and with the function of acting as a moral example for his community of believers. 1 Although these passages contain, in the case of Joseph and Moses, events that allow for a summary biographical reconstruction, the style of Qur’anic discourse and the dramatic construction of the narratives, which often involves God’s direct intervention, makes the identification of precise themes, around which verses relating to biblical prophets are dictated, more significant. These themes thus inspire verses in which historical details are mainly absent, and references to the lived events of the prophets are secondary to the intentions of Qur’anic discourse. The tales of the biblical prophets are marked by adversity, opposition, and hardship that each prophet must be able to resist, trusting in his final victory willed by God. Joseph (Y ūsuf ) describes his dream to his father Jacob (Yaʿqūb), who already forewarns him of the hostility and the trap of his siblings, inviting Joseph not to tell them of his miraculous vision (Q 12:5). The brothers, as soon as they hear about Joseph’s dream, consider killing him but instead take him and abandon him in the well, later telling their father that he had been eaten by a wolf (Q 12:8–18). Here his vicissitudes continue: he is rescued and sold to an Egyptian, he suffers the wiles of the Egyptian’s wife and finds himself imprisoned (Q 12:19–35), and he stays there a long time because he relies on two other prisoners whose dreams he interpreted to get out (Q 12:35–42). At the end of the story, Joseph says it was Satan who sowed discord between him and his brothers (Q 12:100). Torment or conflict, and escape from danger, often involving a flight of some sort, is repeatedly presented as the primary adversaries suffered by the prophets. Job (Ayyūb) likewise calls upon God in his torment and suffering, which he attributes to Satan (Q 38:41). God, in turn, instructs Job about how to make water flow and gives him back his lost family, finding him patient and an exemplary servant of God (Q 38:41–44). Jonah (Y ūnus, also dhū l-nūn, “the one of the fish”), frustrated that God seemed to have no concern with him, became angry, only to have his faith in God affirmed in his deliverance from torment (Q 21:87–88). Traveling by ship, Jonah was swallowed by a fish. In its belly, he invoked God who saved him from remaining thus trapped until the Day of Resurrection (Q 37:140–146). The story of Moses (Mūsā) begins with his infancy and Pharaoh calling for the slaughter of the male children (Q 28:4). Moses temporarily escaped Egypt for years, finding refuge among the