On these pages, Potiphar's wife, Zalikha in Swahili, seduces Yusuf. When the two are discovered, Yusuf goes to jail. In the meantime, the clever Zalikha decides to organize a luncheon to allow the gossiping women to see for themselves how dazzling Yusuf’s beauty is and why she could not resist!
What is so peculiar here? These pages of Qiṣṣati Yūsufu clearly show lines of co-existing scripts and language on the same page: in red ink the Arabic Quranic verses from Sura XII (Surat Yūsuf) are embedded with the Swahili verse lines in Arabic script and black ink.The Quranic fragments quoted in these pages are from verse 12:31 and 12:33. The Swahili poet depicts in these pages the scene of Zalikha giving knives, oranges and melons (Sw. machungwa na matanga) to the women, and they end up cutting their hands when they see Yusuf enter the room. The knives that Potiphar’s wife gave the maidens were sharper than a shell (Sw. zikali zaidi shaza). The women were in awe when Yusuf passed by Zalikha’s sign, and they exclaimed: “He is not a human being; an angel (Sw. malaika) has appeared.” This Swahili reported speech clearly rewrites and echoes the verse in Sura XII: “This is no mortal; he is non other than a noble Angel.” This verse is the second fragment that is embedded in the Swahili manuscript on page 31. Because of Yusuf’s appearance, the women became absentminded. At that point Zalikha told them: “This is the one you were gossiping about; you have cut your hands with knives and all of you are dripping blood.” Zalikha’s words also rewrite and confirm what is attested in the Quranic verse quoted on the bottom of page 31. The fragment is as follows: “This is he you blamed for”. The Quranic fragment on p. 32 draws from verse 33 and echoes the moment when Yusuf decided to go to prison to abstain from further temptations. The fragment reads as follows: “My Lord, prison is dearer to me”. In the Swahili poem, Yusuf reveals this preference to Zalikha who orders Yusuf the servant to be imprisoned. The episode closes with Zalikha feeling of shame, which torments her.