Joseph and The Amazing Proto-Technicolor Dreamcoat

The Story of Joseph: A Fourteenth Century Turkish Morality Play
By Sheyyad Hamza
Translated by Bill Hickman
Syracuse University Press, 2014, 168 pages

BY ANGELE ELLIS

Once upon a time, in14th century Anatolia, a gifted storyteller—part preacher, part minstrel—wove together the texts of the Peoples of the Book with traditional folktales to create a thrilling narrative and Islamic morality tale. In Hickman’s skillful translation from Old Turkish—complete with weighted pauses, dazzling digressions, and fantastic events—the reader can almost hear the gasps of Hamza’s spellbound audience.

The bones of the story, as known even today, remain intact. His father’s favorite, Joseph, the beautiful, virtuous young hero with the fabulous coat, finds himself betrayed by his brothers and sold into slavery, only to rise, through God-inspired divination of dreams, to power in Egypt. Eventually, Joseph reunites with and forgives his family, eventually dies and then undergoes a sacred burial. But Hamza’s interpretation of this Hebrew prophet adds a distinctly Muslim flavor, with morals waiting at turning points of the text.

Hamza’s tale begins with an invocation to the Prophet, Muhammad—Hope of sinners—and to the imams. At one point, Muhammad appears to all Muslim sinners in Hell, wiping the mark of that dark place from their foreheads, and leading them into Paradise. Zeliha (who replaces the wife of Potiphar in this version) repents of her sins and smashes her idols—with the implied identities of Christian saints. After her husband’s death, Zeliha finds herself restored to youth and beauty, marries Joseph, and bears him many sons. At the story’s end, Moses removes Joseph’s coffin from the River Nile and buries it (an ending that is similar to one Talmudic version of Joseph’s life).

Hickman includes with his translation an introduction, afterword, and synopsis—but as Hickman says, this ancient story can be enjoyed on its own, as it was when Hamza told and retold it. 

This review will appear in Al Jadid, Vol. 19, No. 68. 

© Copyright 2015  AL JADID MAGAZINE

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