Yusuf (Joseph)

75. “They said: ‘The penalty thereof is that he in whose bag it is found shall himself be (held as bondsman) in penalty for it. Thus do we punish the unjust’.”

Tribes in the past used to punish thieves by putting them into servitude.¹ And there is no exceptions or discrimination in law, whoever was found to be a thief would be enslaved. Of course, the retribution of a wrongdoer in a foreign country can often be decided according to the laws of his country.

Thus in Egypt the guilty could be judged by the laws of his land and not according to the laws of the host country. The Qur’an sees theft as an outstanding instance of oppression and thus in the noble verse it calls the thief an ‘unjust’ one.

The verse says:

“They said: ‘The penalty thereof is that he in whose bag it is found shall himself be (held as bondsman) in penalty for it. Thus do we punish the unjust’.”

Since the law in Kan‘an was that the thief must lose his freedom in servitude, the brothers said that his penalty was the same one in whose load it was found; i.e., the thief himself would be its penalty (prevention). Yusuf had achieved his objective which was to detain his brother.