Prison Is Dearer to Me

She said: this is the young man about whom you blamed me. I did seek to seduce him, but he refused. And now, if he refuses to obey my order, he will certainly be cast into prison, and he will be one of those disgraced. She was still running after him and threatening him.

And the women who had seen him were now all urging him to obey his mistress. They were telling him: she is your master; you have to obey her. So now the pressure was coming not only from the wife of al-ʿAzīz but from all these other women who had seen him. Things were becoming very, very difficult, painful and distressing for Yūsuf. He was going through fitnah, and his life was full of distress. He was living in a big prison — a prison of fitnah. All around him was fitnah; seduction surrounded him on every side.

So Yūsuf said: rabbi al-sijnu aḥabbu ilayya mimmā yadʿūnanī ilayh — O my Lord, prison is more to my liking than that to which they invite me. For Yūsuf now, living in prison was easier than living outside it, because what he was going through outside prison was worse. He said: O Allah, take me to prison — at least I will be away from this fitnah; that is better for me.

Glory be to Allah: Yūsuf was doing all of this to keep away from one of the most powerful and seductive things that can affect a man. It was not only the beauty and the lust and the urging of the women, the society and the environment Yūsuf was living in; he was also being coerced and forced to commit the act of zinā. Yūsuf said: O Allah, take me to prison; going to prison is better for me than responding to what they want me to do.

And then he said: unless You turn their plot away from me, I will feel inclined towards them and be one of the ignorant. He was saying: O Allah, if You do not take this away from me, I am weak; I am weak, and I am going to fall into this. It is an admission of weakness from Yūsuf. We are weak. We should never think that we are strong; our strength comes from Allah (swt). And this is a duʿāʾ we should say in environments like this, which resemble the environment of Yūsuf (peace be upon him): wa illā taṣrif ʿannī kaydahunna aṣbu ilayhinna wa akun min al-jāhilīn — O Allah, unless You turn their plot away from me, I will feel inclined towards them and be one of the ignorant.

So his Lord answered his invocation and turned their plot away from him; truly, He is the All-Hearing, the All-Knowing.