al-Ṣaffāt

فَالْتَقَمَهُ الْحُوتُ وَهُوَ مُلِيمٌ

فَلَوْلآ أَنَّهُ كَانَ مِنَ الْمُسَبّـِحِينَ

لَلَبِثَ فِي بَطْنِهِ اِلَي يَوْمِ يُبْعَثُونَ

142. “Then the fish swallowed him while he blamed himself;”

143. “So had he not been of those that glorify Allah,”

144. “He would have tarried in its belly until the Day of Resurrection.

Sometimes animals are ordered from the side of Allah to do something. So, the great fish swallowed Jonah while he deserved to be blamed. The verse says:

The Arabic term /mulim/ originally is derived from /lawama/ in the sense of ‘blame’ and when it is conjugated in this Arabic form it means: to be deserved of blame. It is certain that this blame and scorn was not because of a lesser sin or a heinous sin but its cause was only the leaving the better which he committed. That he hastened in going out and emigrated from among his people. But the Lord Who makes fire safe inside water and glass beside stone, ordered this great animal that it would not hurt his servant, Jonah, the least hurt.

Jonah should pass an unprecedented term in prison in order to note his own ‘leaving the better’ and to try to recompense it. An Islamic narration indicates that Allah inspired the fish not to break any bone and not to cease any join of him.¹ In the second and third verses, the Qur’an implies that Jonah realized the situation very soon and thoroughly he turned to Allah and asked Him forgiveness for his ‘leaving the better’. So, in this verse, through a short sentence, it says:

Thus, this temporary prison would be changed into a permanent prison, and that permanent prison would be changed into his grave. Or the fish might remain alive forever and Jonah would be kept prisoner in its belly until the Hereafter.

Footnotes

1. 1. The commentary by Fakhr-i-Razi, and Burhan under the verse.