Surah Al-Anbya, Ayah 88

Yunus

This story is mentioned here, and in Surat As-Saffat and Surah Nun. Yunus bin Matta, upon him be peace, was sent by Allah to the people of Nineveh, which was a town in the area of Mawsil in northern Iraq. He called them to Allah, but they rejected him and persisted in their disbelief. So he left them in anger, threatening them with punishment after three days. When they realized that he was telling the truth and that a Prophet never lies, they went out to the desert with their children and cattle and flocks. They separated the mothers from their children, then they beseeched Allah and pleaded to Him, with the camels and their young groaning, the cows and their calves mooing, and the sheep and their lambs bleating, so Allah spared them from the punishment. Allah says:

The prayer of Yunus (علیہ السلام) is invoked by all people at all times and for all their needs

وَكَذَٰلِكَ نُنجِي الْمُؤْمِنِينَ (And this is how We rescue the believers - 21:88.) That is, just as We released Yunus (علیہ السلام) from his misery and distress, so do We deliver other believers (مُؤْمِنِينَ ) when they turn towards Us repenting their sins sincerely.

According to a hadith of the Holy Prophet ﷺ if a Muslim prays to Allah Ta` a1a for the grant of a wish in the words used by Yunus (علیہ السلام) when he was in the stomach of the fish i.e. لَّا إِلَـٰهَ إِلَّا أَنتَ سُبْحَانَكَ إِنِّي كُنتُ مِنَ الظَّالِمِينَ (21:87) He would accept his prayer and grant his wish. (Ahmad, Tirmidhi, Mahari)

Jonah (Yunus) was sent as a prophet to Nineveh, an ancient city of Iraq. At that time, Nineveh’s population was just over one hundred thousand. For a long time, he invited the community to accept the unity of God and the Hereafter, but they were not ready to do so. Now, if any community remains adamant about their denial of a prophet, even after having had the divine message conveyed to them to the fullest possible extent, then God’s way is to ask the prophet to leave the town and thereafter the community is subjected to punishment (in the shape of some disaster). But Jonah himself felt that the time had come for him to go, and he went away, leaving his community without waiting for God’s command to do so. He left the city and, reaching the sea coast, he boarded a boat. After setting sail, the boat started sinking. People thought that some slave who had fled from his master was on the boat. According to an old tradition, the solution to this problem was to discover the slave and cast him out. When lots were drawn, the name of Jonah came up and he was thrown overboard. At that moment a big fish (probably a sperm whale) appeared and swallowed him. The fish kept him in its stomach, then at God’s command, ejected him and cast him up on the coast. There he recovered his health and returned to his community. A prophet had to face this fate simply because he left his dawah mission before its completion. Then one can imagine the fate of those successors of the prophet who have been neglectful and completely unmindful of the task of spreading God’s word.