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and, once he had given them their provisions, he placed the drinking-cup in his brother’s pack. A man called out, ‘People of the caravan! You are thieves!’

and they turned and said, ‘What have you lost?’

They replied, ‘The king’s drinking-cup is missing,’ and, ‘Whoever returns it will get a camel-load [of grain],’ and, ‘I give you my word.’

They said, ‘By God! You must know that we did not come to make mischief in your land: we are no thieves.’

They asked them, ‘And if we find that you are lying, what penalty shall we apply to you?’

and they answered, ‘The penalty will be [the enslavement of] the person in whose bag the cup is found: this is how we punish wrongdoers.’

[Joseph] began by searching their bags, then his brother’s, and he pulled it out from his brother’s bag. In this way We devised a plan for Joseph- if God had not willed it so, he could not have detained his brother as a penalty under the king’s law- We raise the rank of whoever We will. Above everyone who has knowledge there is the One who is all knowing.

[His brothers] said, ‘If he is a thief then his brother was a thief before him,’ but Joseph kept his secrets and did not reveal anything to them. He said, ‘You are in a far worse situation. God knows best the truth of what you claim.’

They said, ‘Mighty governor, he has an elderly father. Take one of us in his place. We can see that you are a very good man.’