The Story of Yusuf's False Killing in the Holy Quran: A Text-World Theory Approach

Abstract

This article attempts to extend the applicability of Text World Theory to Arabic narrative and religious discourse. I particularly examine the first eighteen verses of Surah Yusuf which is a short narrative of Yusuf's experiences as a child including his brothers’ false story of him being killed by a wolf. Based on my analysis, I show how the text-worlds constructed throughout these verses help readers to better comprehend the false narrative invented by Yusuf's brothers in order to convince their father that Yusuf's death was out of their control and will. Besides, I demonstrate the need for introducing the notion of a miraculous text-world to Text World Theory when approaching the Holy Quran as a sacred transcript. Furthermore, the analysis validates Z. A. Z. Mahmoud's ideas of confirmed unrealized text-worlds throughout the concept of Quranic dreams, as well as his consideration of the discourse-world of the Holy Quran as that of spoken discourses.