Bible is the holy book of Christians and Koran is the book of Islam. Story of Joseph appears in both the Bible and the Koran. This story is comparable in most aspects. According to both Joseph is one of the 12 sons of Jacob. Joseph has a vision of “eleven stars and the sun and the moon all bowing to him” which he shares with his father and the brothers. Joseph has a special power of reading dreams. Joseph’s father behavior and the power of reading dreams develop the sibling rivalry between Joseph and his brothers. In reality, many sibling relationships are challenging, for the children and for the parents too. Sibling rivalry is inevitable because all human beings, especially the young children are capable of experiencing anger, jealousy and may express their feelings. Although the most important theme the sibling rivalry is explained differently in the Koran and in the Bible, but the moral values of books is the same.
According to the Koran, Jacob, the father of Joseph, knew that Joseph’s brothers would not accept the Joseph’s ability of interpreting the dream. Therefore, he tells Joseph not to share the dream with the brothers, but Joseph does mistake and he explains his dreams to his brothers. According to brothers Joseph is showing his power on them. They feel jealous of their younger brother Joseph. This led them to the sibling rivalry. According to the brothers “Joseph and his brother are dearer to our father than ourselves, though we are many” (Sura 12. Joseph 78). This means that the brother of Joseph thinks that the father affection for Joseph is the most.
Dishonesty and cheating is the reason of conflict between Jacob and his elder sons. The jealousy the brothers feels toward Joseph has blind their hearts, disorient their thinking and make small things seem impossible, large things seeming trivial. They come up with unbelievable plan to kill Joseph. “Truly our father is much mistaken. Let us slay Joseph, or cast him away in some far-off land, so that we may have no rivals in our father’s love, and after that be honorable men” (Sura 12. Joseph 78). The jealousy of the brothers towards the Joseph has led them to the wrong deed of killing their own brother. But one of the brother’s suggests that rather than killing Joseph, they should drop him into a dark pit. They think that Joseph absence would remove him from their father’s thoughts. Therefore, they decide to implement this immoral plan. They go to Jacob, the father with a plan in their mind and ask a permission to send Joseph with them, on the alleged reason of letting him play and enjoy himself. From their first words, the father suspects betrayal and express his fear that a wolf would take Joseph. Eventually, Jacob agrees and Joseph leave with his brothers.
They go directly to the well and without any guilt, pick up Joseph and throw him down into the dark well. The brothers feel that a traveler would find Joseph and sell him into slavery. They put the goat’s blood on the clothes of Joseph and take that with them as an evidence to show it to their father. The brothers of Joseph know that father is going to suspect them for the Joseph’s lost. By the time they reach home it is dark and they starts crying in front of their father. They say, “We went off to compete together and left Joseph with our pack. The wolf devoured him. But you will not believe us, though we speak the truth. And they showed him their brother’s shirt, stained with false blood” (Sura 12. Joseph 78). This means that they say a lie to their father by telling him that wolf had killed the Joseph. The brothers of Joseph are confident that weeping is not a proof to hide their inevitable crime as they need a solid proof to cover up their crime. They show the clothes of Joseph stained with blood as evidence.
In the meantime the Joseph is in the well, the caravan approaches and the man from the caravan take out the Joseph from the dark pit. The caravan move to Egypt and the man sells Joseph as a slave. Just as the brothers are predict, the men of the caravan take Joseph to Egypt expecting to sell him for a good price.
According to the Bible, one of the main reasons of Sibling rivalry is the favoritism. Sibling favoritism hurt feelings and infects the heart of a child and leads to feelings of inferiority, anger, resentment, and even bitterness. It has started because Jacob, father of Joseph, shows his favoritism to him in front of his other children. Jacob gives a beautiful ornamented robe with long sleeves as a gift to Joseph to show his special love for him. This act of Jacob starts developing the seeds of jealousy and anger towards Joseph from his other children.
In the Bible, “When [Joseph’s] brothers saw that their father loved him more than all of his brothers, they hated him and could not speak a kind word to him” (New International Version, Gen. 37.4). They all think that he is the most beloved son of the father and they are nothing to him. Joseph’s brothers jealousy develop more when Joseph tell him that he has a dream. The brothers say to him “Are you indeed to reign over us? Or are you indeed to rule over us?” (Gen. 37.8). They think that Joseph want to show us that he is the extraordinary child of the father and he has a gift to interpret the dreams. This means that he is able to predict the future by understanding the dreams. Because of Joseph’s special power his brother thinks that the father tends to love him more than them.
Next day, the brothers go to pasture the flocks and the Father sends Joseph to keep an eye on them. The father does- not trust them, so Joseph has a job to spy his brothers and give information about them to the father. Joseph follows them and when the brothers see him from afar they plan a conspiracy to kill him. They talk to one another, “Here comes the dreamer. Come now, let us kill him and throw him into one of the pits. Then we will say that a fierce animal has devoured him, and we will see what will become of his dreams” (Gen. 37.19). But one of the brothers named Ruben suggests that there is no need to kill him. Therefore, they rip his robe and throw him into the dark pit. The pit was empty and there is no water in it. After that they are waiting for the caravan while eating their meal to sell him. They see Ishmaelite and one of the brothers named Judah suggest selling Joseph to them. They lift up Joseph from the pit and sell him to Midianite for “twenty shekels of silver. They take Joseph to Egypt.
In the meantime Ruben go back to the pit and he look for the Joseph and he is not able to find him. Therefore, he picks up the robe of Joseph and takes it to his brothers. He tells them that he is not able to find the Joseph. The brothers take the Joseph “robe of many colors” and dip it into the goat’s blood. After that they go back to the father and show him the stained robe of many colors. Jacob recognizes it and he say, “It is my son’s robe!” (Gen. 37.33). He also says that a violent animal killed him and he is not alive. Meanwhile Joseph has been sold by Midianites in the Egypt to “Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh (king), the captain of the guard” (Gen. 37: 36).
According to both the books Koran and Bible, through Joseph's qualities and contributions he eventually rise to a position of great favor and duty; but, when Potiphar's wife, having failed in her efforts to seduce him, claims that it is Joseph who has been tried to seduce her. Joseph is being punished to go into prison. After a while in the prison Joseph interprets the Pharaoh’s both dreams as a single coming up prediction warning of the loom of seven years of abundance to be followed by seven years of deprivation. When the Pharaoh hears the interpretation of the dreams, he set Joseph free. For this accomplishment Joseph becomes the in charge of the granaries. When famine struck, Joseph's brothers come to Egypt for food. Joseph recognizes them, but they are not able to recognize him. He asks question about their family and agrees to distribute the grains to them. After that he tells his servants to put the golden bowl in the bag of the Benjamin, his younger brother, so he can keep him there in the Egypt. One of the brothers says that I can accept the punishment on behalf of my younger brother because he is afraid that father could not live without his beloved son Benjamin.
When Joseph hears all these things he reveals his identity to his brothers and tells them to bring his father to the Egypt. He wants to reunite his family. Therefore he gives an old shirt to his brothers to cast it on his father face to become clear sighted. The brother does the same thing that Joseph tells him to do with the father to get his eyesight back. In the end the family of Jacob come together and Joseph give forgiveness to all his brothers for their sins.
In conclusion, in the Bible all the characters and moral of the story is in detail and cleared. This means that the characters of the story are addresses by their names which enhance the clear vision to understand the text. In spite of Koran tends to concentrate more on moral or spiritual significance of the event rather than the details of the story. This is the tale of conspiracy and deception, of jealousy, pride, and passion. In other words, the story is not the bold and the beautiful. Though in the end everything get reconcile and they come together. Joseph’s story teaches an important lesson for us. It tells us the sibling rivalry makes a person mind evil and leads it to unrighteous path. Also, In the Bible Jacob’s behavior of favoritism develops the seeds of jealousy in the hearts of the brothers, which led them to do such an unpardonable crime. Therefore, I think that sibling rivalry is the most treacherous thing in the life. We should be cautious and always be equal to all kids in the family to avoid this kind of evil things in their hearts.
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