Note 50 — DICTIONARY OF ISLĀM. (continued 14)

The Qurʾān causes Jacob to tell his sons to enter at different gates, and the same injunction is given by the Patriarch in the Jewish writings: “Jacob said to them, Enter not through one and the same gate.”50 The exclamation of the sons of Israel, when they found the cup in Benjamin’s sack—“Has he stolen? so has his brother also”—are clearly a perversion of the words which the Jewish traditions put into their mouths: “Behold a thief, son of a female thief!” referring to the stealing of the Seraphim by Rachel.51 Muḥammad, again, acquaints us that Jacob knew by divine revelation that his son Joseph was still alive, and Jewish tradition enables us to point out whence he obtained the information. We read in the Midrash Jalkut, “An unbeliever asked our master, Do the dead continue to live? your parents do not believe it, and will ye receive it? Of Jacob, it is said, he refused to be comforted; had he believed that the dead still lived, would he not have been comforted? But he answered, Fool, he knew by the Holy Ghost that he still really lived, and about a living person people need no comfort.”52