Talmudic, Koranic and other classic reports of stalking

Kamphuis & Emmelkamp's (2000) review on stalking gives an acute clinical perspective to the Hebrew myth of Joseph and Zuleika related in Genesis XXXIX. After being sold as a slave, Joseph became the target of his master's wife's wanton passion. He steadfastly rejected all her amorous advances and was eventually condemned to prison on account of her calumnies.

This archetype of stalking has many derivations in Jewish, Arabic, Syriac, Persian, Indian and medieval European lore (Rappoport, 1995). Talmudic and midrashic accounts emphasise the complex behavioural sequence of the stalker: implicit seductive manoeuvres; explicit proposals; verbal menaces; planned physical aggression; false accusations; humiliation and punishment.

Moslem tradition, based on Mohammed's twelfth sura, elaborates on the erotomanic aspects of the myth. Yusuf was also in love with Zulaikha, but had no hope of reciprocity. When Yusuf had been freed from prison and appointed in the place of his former master, he married his widowed former mistress and stalker (Weil, 1845). Islamic comments also acknowledge Zulaikha's love as her only excuse. This theme of the stalkee's irresistible charm, already explicit in the Koran, is refined by Persian poets such as Firdusi (933-1025) and especially Jami (1414-1492), whose powerful metaphor of the ‘fair gazelle’ applied to Yusuf conveys the ambivalence of feminine grace and quick escape (Jami, 1882). Ephrem Syrus addresses the stalker's distorted insight: “Out of love for him, I treated him unjustly; and yet he owes his present greatness to us” (Grünbaum, 1901).

Christian authors tend to draw a parallel between Joseph and the Saviour. Emphasis is therefore placed on forgiveness by the stalkee. The stalker's insight is finely verbalised in 14th-century passion plays: “ Principallement une dame / Comme moy; je suis esbahye / Je consière ma follye / Mais, bref, amour me contrainct tant / Qu'il sera force que je prie / Joseph pour estre mon amant” (Anonymous, 1881). In 16th-century Yiddish dramas composed for Purim, a festival celebrating the liberation of Jews from a deadly plot, the slave's and the mistress's alienation and freedom are dialectically discussed and Joseph's stalker goes by many different names (but not Zuleika). Zuleika's syndrome is also staged with other nuances by Goethe and in a famous Broadway show. This overview reinforces Kamphuis & Emmelkamp's view of a typical phenomenon which has remained a contemporary challenge, and also their suggestion of cultural biases in the perception of stalking.