Prophet Yunus (Jonah)

One of the prophets named in the Holy Qur'an. His name derives from the Hebrew word Yonah (dove); it passed into Greek as Ionas, into Arabic as Yunus, and into Western languages as Jonas and Jonah. In the Qur'an he is mentioned as Yunus (al-Nisa 4/163; al-An'am 6/86; Yunus 10/98; al-Saffat 37/139), as Dhu al-Nun (al-Anbiya 21/87) and as Sahib al-Hut (the Companion of the Fish; al-Qalam 68/48); it is stated that revelation came to him and that he was among the rightly guided, among those preferred above the worlds, among the righteous and among the messengers. The tenth sura of the Qur'an bears his name.

In the hadith he is called Yunus ibn Matta, after his father Matta. According to some Islamic sources he belonged to the tribe of Benjamin, son of Jacob; according to al-Tha'labi he was from Nineveh and his people were idolaters. According to Ibn Qutayba he was sent to his people after Elisha (in some sources Elijah), according to al-Maqdisi after Solomon. Almost all Islamic works speak of Nineveh as “the city of Yunus ibn Matta”.

According to the Qur'anic account, Yunus, one of God's messengers (al-Saffat 37/139), went away in anger when his people did not believe him (al-Anbiya 21/87), boarded a laden ship (al-Saffat 37/140), lost when lots were cast, and was swallowed by a fish (al-Saffat 37/141-142). Had he not been among those who glorify God, he would have remained in the fish's belly until the day people are raised; but he said, “There is no god but You; truly I have been among the wrongdoers” (al-Anbiya 21/87-88; al-Saffat 37/143-144), and his prayer being answered, he was brought out of the fish's belly, weak, by God's mercy (al-Qalam 68/49); a broad-leaved plant of the gourd kind, yaqtin, was made to grow beside him to give him shade (al-Saffat 37/145-146), and afterwards he was sent as prophet to 100,000 people or more (al-Saffat 37/147). His people believed, were saved from the punishment of which they had been warned, and were granted enjoyment for a while (al-Saffat 37/148). The Sura of Yunus declares that his was the only people saved from punishment by believing when it was announced to them (Yunus 10/98). In the verse “So wait with patience for the decision of your Lord, and do not be like the Companion of the Fish, who cried out in distress after giving way to anger” (al-Qalam 68/48), Yunus's conduct is reproached and the Messenger of God is told not to give way to anger at once when the polytheists do not believe.

Yunus is also mentioned in the hadith. Among them is the hadith “It is not fitting for any servant to say, ‘I am better than Yunus ibn Matta.’” According to another hadith, when the Messenger of God reached the hill of Harsha between Mecca and Medina he said, “It is as though I see Yunus passing here on a red camel whose halter is of palm fibre, wearing a woollen cloak, reciting the talbiya.” The sources also state that the Prophet himself said Nineveh was the homeland of the prophet Yunus: when, after the ill-treatment he suffered at Ta'if, he took refuge in the vineyard of the brothers Shayba and Utba ibn Rabi'a, he asked Addas, the Christian slave who offered him grapes, where he was from, and on hearing “Nineveh” said, “From Nineveh, the town of Yunus ibn Matta? He is my brother. He was a prophet, and I am a prophet”; moved by this, Addas embraced Islam there.

Works of exegesis and of the stories of the prophets tell the story with detailed reports; the atlas records them as “this is what the sources relate”. According to a report transmitted from Ali, Yunus received revelation at the age of thirty and was a prophet to his people for thirty-three years, yet only two people believed in him. When he despaired of his people and cursed them, he was told that he had been hasty and was commanded to preach for forty more days. On the thirty-seventh day he told his people that punishment would come in three days, its sign being a change in their colour, and on the fortieth day he left them. When clouds of punishment settled over them his people repented and believed, and God forgave them. Seeing that his people, whose destruction he awaited, had been forgiven, Yunus thought he had been made to look a liar, left in anger and boarded a ship; when the ship was in danger of sinking he was cast into the sea and swallowed by a fish, his prayer in the darkness was answered and he was brought out onto the shore, a plant shaded him there, and when he recovered he was sent again to Nineveh. In a report transmitted by al-Kisa'i, the fish at God's command cast him, weak as a featherless fledgling, onto the bank of the Tigris; Gabriel came and passed his hand over his body, and a doe suckled him; later Yunus was reunited with the wife and children he had lost, returned to his homeland and went on preaching until his death.

His Tomb and Complex — The medieval Muslim travellers Ibn Jubayr and Ibn Battuta, describing Nineveh, also speak of the hill of Tall al-Tawba (Tall Yunus), where the repentance of Yunus and the people of Nineveh was accepted, and report that on Fridays the people went to visit this hill, where, according to one belief, the grave of the prophet Yunus also lies. The sources further mention a monastery built at Nineveh in his memory. In the XIX century, archaeological excavations on the Kuyunjik and Nebi Yunus mounds at Nineveh brought to light palaces and temples of Assyrian kings and clay tablets. In Mosul, the tomb of the prophet Yunus is counted among the city's many tombs; the Nebi Yunus Mosque, on the eastern bank of the Tigris opposite the city, is among its important mosques and was repaired several times in the Ottoman period. Inside and outside Mosul there are maqams of certain prophets such as Seth, Yunus, Jirjis and Daniel.