Potiphar's wife

Potiphar's wife is a minor character in the Hebrew Bible and the Quran. She was the wife of Potiphar, the captain of Pharaoh's guard in the time of Jacob and his twelve sons. According to the Book of Genesis, she falsely accused Joseph of attempted rape after he rejected her sexual advances, resulting in his imprisonment.

In Genesis she is given no name, but in later medieval Jewish sources and Islamic tradition, she is identified as Zuleikha (/zuːˈleɪkɑː/ zoo-LAY-kah; Hebrew: זוליכה‎, zú-li'-koh; Arabic: زُلَيْخَا‎, zulayḵā).

The Bible (Genesis 39:5-20) narrates her treatment of Joseph, slave to her husband Potiphar:

And he left all that he had in Joseph's hand; and, having him, he knew not aught save the bread which he did eat. And Joseph was of beautiful form, and fair to look upon. And it came to pass after these things, that his master's wife cast her eyes upon Joseph; and she said: 'Lie with me.' But he refused, and said unto his master's wife: 'Behold, my master, having me, knoweth not what is in the house, and he hath put all that he hath into my hand; he is not greater in this house than I; neither hath he kept back any thing from me but thee, because thou art his wife. How then can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?' And it came to pass, as she spoke to Joseph day by day, that he hearkened not unto her, to lie by her, or to be with her. And it came to pass on a certain day, when he went into the house to do his work, and there was none of the men of the house there within, that she caught him by his garment, saying: 'Lie with me.' And he left his garment in her hand, and fled, and got him out. [...] And she laid up his garment by her, until his master came home. And she spoke unto him according to these words, saying: 'The Hebrew servant, whom thou hast brought unto us, came in unto me to mock me. And it came to pass, as I lifted up my voice and cried, that he left his garment by me, and fled out.' And it came to pass, when his master heard the words of his wife, which she spoke unto him, saying: 'After this manner did thy servant to me'; that his wrath was kindled. And Joseph's master took him, and put him into the prison, the place where the king's prisoners were bound; and he was there in the prison.

The Quran narrates the wife of Aziz’s treatment of Yusuf as follows:

When he reached his maturity, We gave him wisdom and knowledge. We thus reward the righteous. 23. She in whose house he was living tried to seduce him. She shut the doors, and said, “I am yours.” He said, “God forbid! He is my Lord. He has given me a good home. Sinners never succeed. 24. She desired him, and he would have desired her had he not seen the proof of his Lord. It was thus that We diverted evil and indecency away from him. He was one of Our loyal servants. 25. As they raced towards the door, she tore his shirt from behind. At the door, they ran into her husband. She said, “What is the penalty for him who desired to dishonor your wife, except imprisonment or a painful punishment? 26. He said, “It was she who tried to seduce me.” A witness from her household suggested: “If his shirt is torn from the front: then she has told the truth, and he is the liar. 27. But if his shirt is torn from the back: then she has lied, and he is the truthful. 28. And when he saw that his shirt was torn from the back, he said, “This is a woman's scheme. Your scheming is serious indeed. 29. “Joseph, turn away from this. And you, woman, ask forgiveness for your sin; you are indeed in the wrong. 30. Some ladies in the city said, “The governor's wife is trying to seduce her servant. She is deeply in love with him. We see she has gone astray.”31. And when she heard of their gossip, she invited them, and prepared for them a banquet, and she gave each one of them a knife. She said, “Come out before them.” And when they saw him, they marveled at him, and cut their hands. They said, “Good God, this is not a human, this must be a precious angel.”32. She said, “Here he is, the one you blamed me for. I did try to seduce him, but he resisted. But if he does not do what I tell him to do, he will be imprisoned, and will be one of the despised. 33. He said, “My Lord, prison is more desirable to me than what they call me to. Unless You turn their scheming away from me, I may yield to them, and become one of the ignorant. 34. Thereupon his Lord answered him, and diverted their scheming away from him. He is the Hearer, the Knower. 35. Then it occurred to them, after they had seen the signs, to imprison him for a while.

— Al-Qur’an: Surah Yusuf: 22-35, Wife of Aziz, https://www.clearquran.com/012.html

In Jewish sources

Jewish commentators also see some good motives in her actions.A story about Zuleikha is told in Sefer haYashar, where she was mocked by other aristocratic Egyptian ladies, her circle of friends, for being infatuated with a Hebrew slave boy. Inviting her friends to her home, Zuleikha gave them all oranges and knives to slice them with. While they engaged in this task, Zuleikha had Joseph walk through the room. Distracted by his handsomeness, all the ladies accidentally cut themselves with the knives, drawing blood. Zuleikha then reminded her friends that she had to see Joseph every day. Following this incident, her contemporaries no longer mocked her.

Rashi comments that the wife of Potiphar saw through astrology that she would have children through Joseph. The astrological calculations however were slightly off. Asenath, her daughter (by adoption, in some accounts) became the wife of Joseph and therefore the wife of Potiphar begot grandchildren (not children) through Joseph.

In Islamic sources

Muslim scriptural commentators (Mufassirun) have regarded Zuleikha as a sinner and villainess with the exceptions of the great Muslim mystic poets Rumi, Hafiz and Jami. For Rumi, Zuleikha's obsession with Joseph is a symptom and manifestation of the soul's great deep longing for God. For this, he insists, it is true of any person's deep love for another.

Scholarly criticism

Scholars such as Meir Sternberg (1985) characterise the woman's repetitive behaviour towards Joseph as sexual assault. McKinlay (1995) noted that Potiphar's wife is treated as an object in his master's possession (Gen 39:8–9), and the reason Joseph refuses is not because he doesn't want to have sex with her, but because it would violate his master's trust and be a sin against the God Yahweh. It could be argued that the woman is trying to assert herself as a subject who makes her own choices instead of remaining an object owned by her husband, and invites Joseph to join her in this action which the narrative frames as a 'sin'. Simultaneously, however, she abuses her position of power as the slave master's wife to coerce Joseph into sex, and to punish him for refusal. Susan Tower Hollis (1989) demonstrated that the narrative of Potiphar's wife 'is in line with certain ancient folk-tales, where a 'woman makes vain overtures to a man and then accuses him of attempting to force her', with the man 'unjustly punished for his alleged attempt to seduce the woman.'