Abstract
The Qur'an's story of Yusuf (=Joseph; Surah 12), parallel to the Joseph story in the Bible (Genesis 37-50), is said to be the best (or the most beautiful) of all stories (Ahsan al-qasas), It was elaborated in the post-Qura'nic legend, that is, Hadith, “tafsir (exegesis)”, Qisas al-Anbiya' (tales of the Prophets), etc., and became one of the favorite subject matters particularly in Persian poetry. There are many works entitled Yusuf u Zulaykha (=Potiphar's wife) in it, of which the most estimated is a fifteenth century prominent mystical poet, 'Abd al-Rahman Jami (d. 1492)'s.
In addition to these independent works of Yusuf u Zulaykha, many Persian poets made the most of this story as edifying anecdote in their poetical works, for instance, Farid al-Din 'Attar (d. ca. 1221)'s Mantiq al-Tayr, Sa'di Shirazi (d. 1292)'s Bustan (Sa'di-nameh), and so forth.
From the folkloristic point of view, as Shalom Goldman states in The Wiles of Women/The Wiles of Men (1995), the Yusuf story consists of three motifs: “Potiphar's Wife motif”, “the motif of the Wise Man as Saviour”, and “the motif of the Young Man Triumphant”. When we examine the development of the Yusuf story in Persian literature, “Potiphar's Wife motif” is the most important of the three. Because a lot of Persian poets such as 'Attar, Jami, took up this motif in their works by preference as stated above.
In this paper is examined the development of the “Potiphar's Wife motif” as a significant part of the Yusuf story and her image in Persian literature. As to the image of Potiphar's Wife, she is usually described as a wicked woman in many narratives that deal with this motif. But for most of the Persian poets she isn't the like of it. Her passionate love for Yusuf is rewarded on account of its strength, and through the power of repentance she becomes “a blessed woman” in the end.
