Yusuf and Zulaikha is the Quranic verse of Yusuf (Joseph

Joseph (Hebrew Bible)

Joseph is an important character in the Hebrew bible, where he connects the story of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in Canaan to the subsequent story of the liberation of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt....

) and Zulaikha (the person known in the Bible as Potiphar

Potiphar

Potiphar or Potifar is a person in the Book of Genesis's account of Joseph. Potiphar is said to be the captain of the palace guard and is referred to without name in the Quran. Joseph, sold into slavery by his brothers, is taken to Egypt where he is sold to Potiphar as a household slave...

's wife and whose name is not given there). It has been told and retold countless times in many languages spoken by Muslim

Muslim

A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...

s, especially Persian

Persian language

Persian is an Iranian language within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. It is primarily spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and countries which historically came under Persian influence...

. Its most famous version was written in Persian by Jami

Jami

Nur ad-Dīn Abd ar-Rahmān Jāmī also known as DJāmī, Mawlanā Nūr al-Dīn 'Abd al-Rahmān or Abd-Al-Rahmān Nur-Al-Din Muhammad Dashti who is commonly known as Jami , is known for his achievements as a scholar, mystic, writer, composer of numerous lyrics and idylls, historian, and one of the greatest...

 (1414-1492), in his Haft Awrang ("Seven Thrones"). The story has by then many elaborations, and is capable of a Sufi interpretation, where Zulaikha's lust for Yusuf represents the soul's longing for God.

Other writers to have retold the story include: Mahmud Gami

Mahmud Gami

Mahmud Gami introduced in Kashmiri the Persian forms of the masnavi and ghazal. He was born at Dooru shahabad, a historical town in south kashmir. He is noted for his work Yusuf Zulaikha, a poem which is a major contribution to Kashmiri literature. It is the first and the most popular masnavi in...

 (Kashmiri

Kashmiri language

Kashmiri is a language from the Dardic sub-group and it is spoken primarily in the Kashmir Valley, in Jammu and Kashmir. There are approximately 5,554,496 speakers in Jammu and Kashmir, according to the Census of 2001. Most of the 105,000 speakers or so in Pakistan are émigrés from the Kashmir...

).
It is a standard tale used in Punjabi Qisse.

Also there exists a long poem on the subject, titled as Yusuf and Zalikha, which used to be attributed to Ferdowsi

Ferdowsi

Ferdowsi was a highly revered Persian poet. He was the author of the Shahnameh, the national epic of Iran and related societies.The Shahnameh was originally composed by Ferdowsi for the princes of the Samanid dynasty, who were responsible for a revival of Persian cultural traditions after the...

, the great Persian poet of the tenth and eleventh century, however, the scholars have rejected this book based on its low quality and the time line of Ferdowsi's life.

'Yusuf and Zalikha: The Biblical Legend of Joseph and Potiphar's Wife in the Persian Version Ascribed to Abul-Mansur Qasim, Called Firdausi, ca.