Zulaykha

Zulaykha was the wife of al-Aziz, the chief minister (or treasury minister) of Egypt, who purchased Prophet Yusuf AS when he was sold as a slave by the merchants who had found him in the well. Her story is told in Surah Yusuf (Chapter 12), which the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ described as the most beautiful of stories. She took Yusuf into her household and over time developed an intense infatuation with him. She attempted to seduce him, barring the door and saying 'Come to me.' Yusuf sought refuge in Allah and refused, and ran for the door, at which point she grabbed his shirt from behind, tearing it. Her husband al-Aziz came at the door. Zulaykha attempted to blame Yusuf, but a witness from her own household revealed the truth through the logic of the torn shirt: if torn from the front, he had moved toward her; if from the back, she had grabbed him fleeing. The shirt was torn from the back. Al-Aziz acknowledged Yusuf's innocence but asked him to keep quiet about the matter. When the women of the city gossiped about Zulaykha's infatuation, she invited them to a banquet and had Yusuf pass before them — they cut their hands in amazement at his beauty. Zulaykha used this to justify herself: 'This is the one you blamed me for — I did try to seduce him.' She had Yusuf imprisoned rather than release him. According to classical Islamic commentaries, including those of Ibn Kathir citing Israelite traditions (with appropriate caution), Zulaykha later repented, grew old and poor, and upon Yusuf's rise to power, she found him and confessed fully, and there are traditions that Yusuf married her. Her story is a multi-dimensional portrait of human passion, weakness, then eventual acknowledgment of the truth.