The Names of Joseph's Fellow Inmates

According to Qurʾān 12 (Yūsuf):35, the Prophet Joseph was imprisoned with two fellow inmates whose dreams he correctly interpreted. These inmates are commonly identified as Pharaoh’s chief baker (al-khabbāz) and cupbearer (al-sāqī), in accordance with their roles in the original Biblical story in Genesis 40. Neither the Bible nor the Qurʾān tell us the inmates’ personal names. The Jewish tradition is also mostly silent about their names. However, some medieval Muslim works dealing with exegesis (tafsīr) tell us what their names were.

In the Muslim tradition, the inmates' names are often discussed. One of the earliest sources to address this subject is the Tafsīr of the famous Kufan exegete and storyteller Muqātil b. Sulaymān (d. 150/767). He is said to have derived much of his material from Jews and Christians. According to him, the cupbearer was called شرهم أقم (Sharham Aqim) and the baker was called شرهم أشم (Sharham Ashim). There is a good explanation of where these names came from. Before presenting this explanation, it is worth noting what else the Muslim commentaries have to say about the inmates’ names.

Both al-Ṭabarī (Baghdad, d. 310/923) and Ibn Abī Ḥātim (Rey, d. 327/938) record a tradition transmitted by Salama b. al-Faḍl (Rey), who claimed that Muḥammad b. Isḥāq (Baghdad, d. 151/768) narrated that the cupbearer was called نبو and that the baker was called مجلث. Al-Thaʿlabī (Nishapur, d. 427/1035) in his Tafsīr and Qiṣaṣ al-anbiyāʾ makes a similar claim (even though some later copyists and editors may have garbled the names). The origin of these names is currently unclear to me.

In his al-Masālik wa-l-mamālik, Abū ʿUbayd al-Bakrī (al-Andalus, d. 487/1094) wrote that the baker’s name was راشان and the cupbearer’s name was مرطش (or مرطس; M-R-Ṭ-Sh or MRṬS). These names are also mysterious. However, the name مرطش appears to have a parallel in the Jewish tradition. In the Midrashic work known as Sefer ha-Yashar, we find that the cupbearer is called מירוד (Merod), a name consonantly similar to مرطش. This is the only instance in Jewish Midrashic literature, where the cupbearer is named. First printed in Italy in the 17th century CE, Sefer ha-Yashar is a work of disputed provenance. Leopold Zunz suggested that it was composed in al-Andalus in the late 11th century CE, whereas Joseph Dan has suggested that it was composed in Italy in the 16th century. Sefer ha-Yashar shows clear signs of a Muslim influence. Notably, it is the only Jewish work to call Potiphar's wife זליכה (Zelikha), a name obviously derived from the Muslim tradition, where Joesph's master's wife is known as زليخا (Zulaykhā). If Sefer ha-Yashar borrowed the name זליכה from the Muslim tradition, then it may have also borrowed the name מירוד from that very same tradition. In that case, the Andalusī provenance of Sefer ha-Yashar seems more likely.

According to al-Qurṭubī (Cordova, d. 671/1272), the Muʿtazilī exegete al-Naqqāsh (Baghdad, d. 351/962) said that one inmate was called شرهم (Sharham) and the other سرهم (Sarham). These names resemble those given by Muqātil. In an extant manuscript of al-Naqqāsh's exegetical work, both names are spelled شرهم but appear to be vocalized differently.

There are two opinions attributed to al-Suhaylī (North Africa, d. 581/1185). According to al-Qurṭubī, al-Suhaylī recalled, following al-Ṭabarī, that one inmate was called نبو but could not remember the name of the other inmate. According to the Hadith commentary Fatḥ al-Bārī of Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī (Egypt, d. 852/1449), al-Suhaylī said that they were both called شرهم except one was شَرهم (Sharham) and the other شُرهم (Shurham). This second opinion is likely misattributed to al-Suhaylī. It is probably a version of the abovementioned opinion of al-Naqqāsh.

Having surveyed various exegetical opinions concerning the names of the inmates, we may now return to Muqātil’s opinion. The simplest explanation for the names given by him is that شرهم أقم (Sharham Aqim) and شرهم أشم (Sharham ashim) are corruptions of the Biblical שר האפים (sar ha-ofim; translation “the chief baker”) and שר המשקים (sar ha-mashqim; translation: “the chief in charge of beverages” or “the cupbearer”). These are the titles used to describe Joseph’s fellow inmates in the bible and these titles appear to have found their way into the Muslim tradition, where they were reinterpreted as personal names instead of titles. This is obvious because both names/titles begin and end with the same letters.

We might expect that  شرهم أقم, i.e., شرهم أفم, be the name of the baker and that شرهم أشم be that of that of the cupbearer because of their respective similarity to the Hebrew titles. However, these names are transposed in Muqātil’s text. This, however, is not a problem, since one may expect that foreign names would be confused by copyists, or editors, or Muqātil, or his unnamed source.

We can only speculate what Muqātil’s original Arabic was. Perhaps, the baker was سر هأفم, i.e., שר האפים, or سر همأفم, i.e., the unattested שר המאפים (the chief in charge of baked goods); and the cupbearer may have been سر همشقم, i.e., שר המשקים.

In any case, Muqātil was influenced by the Biblical tradition when naming Joseph's fellow inmates. Other scholars in Iraq (or Rey) and al-Andalus gave the inmates non-Biblical names. There is a possible though currently dubious connection between the cupbearers name as mentioned by the Abū ʿUbayd al-Bakrī of al-Andalus and his name as mentioned in the Midrashic work Sefer ha-Yashar. 

I would like to end this little discussion with a tangentially related anecdote recorded by al-Jāḥiẓ:

This anecdote reveals several interesting points: (1) Storytellers and exegetes of the Qurʾān were known for supplying details absent in the Qurʾān, like the names of secondary and tertiary characters. (2) Some people mocked the storytellers and exegetes for focusing on such inconsequential details. (3) The storytellers and exegetes often got their information from the scripture of Jews and Christians. (4) Some storytellers and exegetes looked down on the traditions attributed to ʿAmr b. al-ʿĀṣ about the Children of Israel. A Companion of the Prophet, ʿAmr was an Arab famous for his thorough knowledge of Jewish and Christian scripture. Muslims often preferred citing him than known Jews or converts, like Kaʿb al-Aḥbār.