Al Anbiyā’

وَذَا النُّونِ اِذْ ذَهَبَ مُغَاضِباً فَظَنَّ أَن لَن نَّقْدِرَ عَلَيْهِ فَنَادَي فِي الظُّلُمَاتِ أَن لآ إِلَهَ إِلآَّ أَنتَ سُبْحَانَكَ إِنّـِي كُنتُ مِنَ الظَّالِمِينَ

فَاسْتَجَبْنَا لَهُ وَنَجَّيْنَاهُ مِنَ الْغَمّ‌ِ وَكَذَلِكَ نُنْجِي الْمُؤْمِنِينَ

87. “And (remember) Zan-Nun (Jonah) when he departed (his people) in anger and imagined that We would not straiten him; so he called out in the darkness: ‘There is no god but You (O my Lord!). Glory be to You! Verily I was of the unjust ones’!”
88. “So We responded to him (his prayer) and delivered him from the grief; and thus do We deliver the believers.”

These two holy verses are also about the life of Yunus (as), the great prophet of Allah. At first, it implies that you should remember Jonah when he went out angrily from among his people who were idolater and disobedient. The verse says:

The Arabic word /nun/ philologically means a huge fish, or, in another sense, it is a crocodile. Thus, the word Zan-Nun means ‘the possessor of a crocodile’. Taking this name for Yunus is for the event which will be referred to later, Allah willing. However, he thought Allah would not straiten the life for him. He imagined he had fulfilled his prophetic mission fully among his disobedient people and had not even left any better in this field. So, now that he left them to themselves and went out from among them, there was nothing to him; while he would rather remain more than that among them and showed patience and perseverance haply they might be aware and turn toward Allah.

The verse says:

At last, for that very leaving the better, he was put in straits and a huge crocodile swallowed him when in that darkness he called Allah, his Lord, saying that he was unjust both to himself and to his people, because he should suffer the miseries and difficulties more than that and that he should accept all tortures so that they might improve themselves. The verse continues saying:

Finally, Allah accepted his prayer and made him free from affliction and grief. In such a way He, the Almighty, delivers the believers. The verse says:

This program was not allocated to Yunus alone but every one of the believers who asks forgiveness from Allah for his shortcomings and asks Him for help and mercy Allah accepts his prayer, and his grief will be removed.

Some Explanations About the Life of Yunus

1. Yunus was busy preaching among his people for years in Neynawa, located in the land of Iraq. He invited them to the religion of Allah, but the more he tried to guide them the less his guidance affected on their hearts. Once he became angry and, leaving that place, went to the shore of the sea.

He embarked a ship there, but in the way the sea became so wavy that it was about that all the people in the ship to be drowned. The captain of the ship, addressing the passengers, said he thought there was a runaway slave among them whom had to be thrown into the sea. (Or he said the ship was too heavy and by drawing lots, one passenger should he thrown into the sea.) However, they cast lots for several times and every time Yunus was elected by lots. Yunus understood that there was a secret concealed in that, so he resigned himself to the events.

When he was thrown into the sea, a huge crocodile swallowed him, and Allah miraculously kept him alive. When he finally realized that he had done a ‘leaving the better’, he turned to Allah and confessed his shortcoming and negligence. Allah accepted his prayer, too, and delivered him from that strait.¹⁴ There may be thought that this event, from the point of science, is impossible, but undoubtedly this matter is a supernatural event and not an intellective impossibility.

It is like the dead being quickened, which is considered but a supernatural event, and it is not impossible. In other words, the fulfilment of such a thing in ordinary ways is not possible, but, by asking the help and infinite power of Allah, there is no problem in it.

2. What Darkness Means Here?

This darkness may refer to the darkness of the sea and the depth of water there, or the darkness of the belly of the huge fish, or the darkness of the night. A tradition narrated from Imam Baqir (as) also verifies this meaning.¹⁵

3. What Was Yunus’ Leaving the Better?

No doubt the application of the Qur’anic phrase ‘in anger’ refers to the anger of Yunus due to his faithless people, and such an anger and inconvenience in that condition, that a sympathetic divine prophet tries hard during years for guiding a misguided people but they never respond him positively, is completely natural. On the other side, in view of the fact that Yunus knew that the Divine punishment was coming over them, leaving that city and locality had not been a sin, but for a great prophet such as Yunus, it was better he remained there until the last moment after which the Divine punishment might come.

For this very reason and for this haste, as a leaving the better, Yunus was taken to task from the side of Allah.

4. An Instructive Lesson

The Qur’anic sentence:

shows that Yunus’ calamity and deliverance was not only a decree particular to him (as), but, observing the hierarchical order, it has a common and general state. Many of the sad events, miseries and calamities are the consequences of our own sins. They are whips for awakening our unaware souls, or they are furnaces to purify the material of the man’s soul. When a man notices the same three points that Yunus noticed, his deliverance will be certain.

1- Noting the reality of Monotheism, and that there is no god and no refuge but Allah. 2- Glorification and purification of Allah from any defect, deficiency, injustice, cruelty and any wrong imagination about His Pure Essence. 3- Confession to one’s own fault. The witness to this statement is the tradition which has been cited in Durr-ul-Manthur, narrated from the Prophet (S), who said:

“One of the names of Allah by which whoever calls Him he will be answered and whenever he asks something by it He will give him that thing, is the prayer of Yunus.”

Once someone asked the Prophet (S) whether that was particular to Yunus alone or it can be used by all Muslim people. The Prophet (S) answered it was related to both Yunus and all the believers when they call Allah by it. Then he said whether that person had not heard the word of Allah in the Qur’an where He says:

This is a reference that whoever invokes such a prayer Allah has guaranteed its acceptance.¹⁶ It does not need to be mentioned that the purpose of calling Him is not only pronouncing the mere words, but its reality must be reflected on the inside and the man’s soul; i.e. while reciting these words, the whole entity of man must be filled with their meanings in his practice. This is also necessary to be mentioned here that the Divine punishments are of two kinds. One of them is the punishment of /’istisal/, viz. the Divine punishment which comes for the incorrigible people to annihilate them to which no prayer is beneficial at this time, because after vanishing the storm of the affliction, the same vices will be repeated.

The other kind of punishments is the punishments which are for training aspects. At these times and in these cases, as soon as the punishment affects and the concerning person comes out of his negligence, it will quickly disappear. This fact makes it clear that one of the philosophies of the miseries, calamities, and inconvenient events is the same effect of vigilance and training. The event of Yunus also warns all the leaders of the path of Truth in different fields that they should never consider that their mission has ended, nor do they think that any effort and endeavour is small in this way, since their responsibility is very grievous and heavy.