We find in the Qurʾan and the life of Muḥammad one of the most fascinating relationship constructs between a text and its contextual psychology in literature; at its crux is the fundamental question: is anagnorisis commensurate with the disclosure of certain truth, which would seem a natural Islamic reflex given that this is revelation, or can a surplus of doubt be sustained with, and after, anagnorisis? At first glance, the recognition scenes in the Qurʾanic version of the Joseph story are untrammelled moments of divine reassurance. They convey the providential deliverance that is a staple of uncomplicated romance. But placing the surah in the context of the life of Muḥammad may prise open the narrative to a degree of uncertainty that pervades the Qurʾan and, to a large extent, other Islamic literatures. In general, the Qurʾanic prophets were modelled on the life of Muḥammad (this is especially apparent from a reading of Surah 26 – al-Shuʿāraʾ). Surah 12 (Yusuf) straddles the Meccan and Medinese period, internalising the former and anticipating the latter, especially Surah 2 (al-Baqarah) in which the animosity of the Jewish community of Medina is recognised for what it is, viz. the denial of the scripture that prophesied the coming of Muḥammad. Epistemology, and the struggle against uncertainty, has a determinative role in all these materials.

This chapter, inspired by in-depth readings of various medieval tafsīr (or exegetical) works, is written following the incremental method of Islamic exegesis; this allows us to explore the cognitive nuances and details of the narrative as they develop through the surah – they are the constitutive elements of what, epistemologically speaking, is tantamount to a complex organic whole.

Surah 12 (Yusuf) of the Qurʾan, devoted entirely to an account of the story of Joseph, is a succinct and stylistically distinct version of events told in detail in Genesis 37 and 39–45. It has spawned numerous studies to such a degree that one might label a separate branch of Qurʾanic studies as ‘Josephologie’. While most of these will contribute some helpful detail to our appreciation of how the text works as a narrative of recognition, only focused analysis of anagnorisis will allow us to temper the hermeneutic bareness of these predominantly structural examinations of the surah.