نَفَعَ

37:149.

Important Words:

یونس (Jonah), the name of a Prophet who lived in the 9th Century B. C., is supposed to be derived from انس. They say انس به i.e. he was or became sociable, amiable or friendly with him; he was or became cheerful, gay or gladdened by his presence or company (Lane). See also Commentary below.

Commentary:

For those who are accustomed to pondering over the deep meanings of the Quran, this verse possesses remarkable evidence of the greatness of God’s mercy. The almost pathetic words breathe a strong desire that the world should follow Divine guidance. The verse expresses the deepest regret at the disbelief of the people by asking why there had not been other people who, like the people of Jonah, should have believed in the truth and escaped Divine punishment. The case of the people of Jonah possesses a strong similarity with that of the people of the Holy Prophet. The people of Nineveh first bitterly opposed Jonah so much so that they were threatened with Divine punishment and Jonah prophesied their early destruction; but later they repented and were saved. In the same way, the people of Mecca opposed the Holy Prophet bitterly and persistently, but at the Fall of Mecca they submitted to him and were consequently saved from Divine punishment. Later, all of them believed in his mission and became the inheritors of Divine grace. In this way the Holy Prophet came to bear a great resemblance to the Prophet Jonah.

Jonah is a Prophet who has been mentioned in six different places in the Quran. In 37:140 he has been spoken of as a heavenly Messenger; in 6:87 and 4:164 he has been reckoned among the Prophets of God; in 21:88 and 68:49 he has been called ذوالنون and صاحب الحوت (i.e. "he of the fish" or "the man of the fish"), in allusion to the incident of the fish. Reference has also been made to him in the words of the Holy Prophet who is reported to have said on one occasion, "Do not declare me to be better than Jonah, son of Amittai" (Muslim). The saying does not mean that the Holy Prophet was not superior to the Prophet Jonah, for he uttered these words before he had been informed by God of his superior spiritual rank. Later on, however, he himself said انا سید ولد آدم i.e. "I am the chief of the children of Adam," meaning thereby that he was the best of all mankind and the Head of the human race (Tirmidhi, ch. on al-Manaqib).

The above saying of the Holy Prophet can also be explained in another way, which has a particular bearing on the verse under comment. The superiority referred to in this saying may not mean superiority in all respects but superiority in one respect only, viz. that all the people of Jonah finally believed in him––a distinction which till then was not shared by any other Prophet. Hence the Holy Prophet hesitated to ascribe unqualified superiority to himself over Jonah until he had seen the end of his people. But subsequent events conferred this distinction on him also, as, like the people of Jonah, all his people too finally believed in him.

In the Bible, Jonah is spoken of as an Israelite Prophet (2 Kings 14:25), who was bidden to go to Nineveh and "cry" against it. But fearing that the Ninevites may repent, he fled to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. The Quran differs from the Bible on these points. The Prophets of God are, according to the Quran, incapable of disobeying Him in the way in which Jonah is represented to have done in the Bible. They are held out, in the Quran, as models whose example other people should follow (4:65 & 6:91). Disobedience to God is therefore the last thing of which a Prophet is capable. Again, it appears from the Quran that Jonah was sent to his own people, i.e. to a people to whom he belonged. According to Jewish tradition, however, he was a Jew but was sent to the people of Nineveh, which was the capital of Ashur. So in the light of the Quranic version Jonah was either not an Israelite or he was sent not to Nineveh but to a section of his own people. Biblical scholars themselves are not agreed as to Jonah’s being an Israelite. In the two points on which the Quran differs from the Bible, reason favours the Quran.