Although after Sulimân his children inherited the kingdom from generation to generation, the author of this work was unable to ascertain their correct names, and as also their histories cannot be obtained in detail from the books that have come under his notice, the reed of explanation abstains from giving accounts of them, but proceeds to describe the affairs of Yûnas:
Allah—w. n. b. pr. a. s.—has said: ‘Yûnas [was also one] of those who were sent [by us] when he fled into the loaded ship,’* and the most magnificent of sayers has also said: ‘When he departed in wrath’ (till the end of the verse).* Yûnas was a celebrated prophet, but as his people accused him of falsehood, and he was unable to bear their insults, he left them without the permission of God. Those who have speculated about the expression Uvlu-l-a’zm, consider him to have been one to whom this epithet was applied.* The Lord Almighty, addressing the seal of prophets in the glorious Qurân, said: ‘Therefore be patient as the Uvlu-l-a’zm of the messengers [apostles] were patient.’* He also said: ‘Be patient under the command of thy Lord, and be not like the companion of the fish.’ Commentators have in various manners explained the expression, ‘when he departed in wrath,’ one of which will be mentioned, and for the others the reader is referred to the works of commentators.
All the chief historians have related that when, after the death of Sulimân, his descendants inherited the kingdom, they began, in course of time, to quarrel with each other, wherefore the adjoining kings coveted the dominions of Sulimân, and one of them, namely, the King of Ninva [Niniveh], which is in Arabian Mesopotamia, marched with his army against the Jews, and conquered them. He made a portion of the tribes prisoners, whereon God—w. n. b. e.—sent a revelation to one of the prophets of the children of Esrâil to tell the king to send a strong-minded prophet, one very steadfast in the execution of divine commands, to the inhabitants of Ninva, to preach to them, to invite them [to profess the Faith], and to rescue the children of Esrâil from their captivity. The king consulted intelligent men on this subject, and the choice fell on Yûnas, whom the king and the grandees then requested to undertake this mission. Yûnas asked: ‘Has God —w. n. b. e.—appointed me by name to this undertaking?’ They said: ‘No; but He has commanded a prophet who is very strong in the religion to proceed to Ninva.’ Yûnas continued: ‘There are several prophets among the children of Esrâil more determined and stronger than I am. My opinion is that you ought to select another individual.’ The king, however, made so many efforts, and used so much persuasion, that Yûnas was forced to comply, and to proceed to Ninva, where he arrived after duly performing the journey, and invited the inhabitants to accept the religion of Mûsa, promising them the favour and pardon of God, and threatening them with the wrath of the [Omnipotent] Sovereign. He sojourned for a long time in Ninva, sermonizing about promises and threats, and about the judge and the judged, but was unable to produce any effect whatever, nor did anyone gird up the loins of obedience towards him. The inhabitants of Ninva would not release the captive Esrâilites, but insulted the prophet by speech and deed, and expelled him from their midst. Yûnas, however, returned to the city, and again engaged in guiding and directing the people, but the inhabitants of Ninva persisted in their obduracy and infidelity as before, and accused him of falsehood. Yûnas then said to the people: ‘If you will not believe, the chastisement of God will probably soon overtake you.’ They replied: ‘These words are of thy own invention.’ Then Yûnas raised his hands in prayer, and said: ‘O Lord, the people accuse me of falsehood; send down Thy vengeance upon them.’ When Yûnas had become aware that his prayers had met with response, he determined to emigrate with his family from the community, and at his departure said to the people of Ninva: ‘Verily the chastisement will come upon you after three days.’ Then he turned the reins of his intention towards one of the mountains, with the determination to remain there till the arrival of the punishment, and to return to the city in case the inhabitants should repent, obey, and implore him to remove the affliction by his prayers. On this occasion the Lord Almighty—w. n. b. e, —despatched Jebrail to the owner of hell, with orders to convey some of the Simûms of the infernal regions to Ninva. The owner obeyed, and Jebrâil conveyed the burning wind to that city, which was thereon immediately surrounded by flames. The inhabitants of Ninva became frightened, and repented of their deeds; but in spite of their efforts to discover Yûnas, that they might profess their belief in his words, they were unable to find him. In the height of their distress they unanimously assembled without the city on the top of a hill, which was from that time called by the name of ‘the hill of lamentations’ and ‘the hill of repentance.’ There they separated the children from their mothers and the young from the old, threw ashes on their own heads, put shackles of thorns on their feet, beginning to weep, to mourn, and to lament. After forty days and nights had elapsed in this manner, the Lord and Bounteous Granter commanded Jebrâil—at the intercession of the chief angels—to remove the punishment. Allah—the most magnificent and glorious—has said: ‘And if it [were] not [so], some city [among the many which have been destroyed] would have believed, and the faith of its [inhabitants] would have been of advantage to them; [but none of them believed before the execution of their sentence] except the people of Yûnas.’*
It is related that after the release of the people of Ninva from the affliction, Yûnas left his refuge and went to the city to see what had become of the people. On the road he met an individual, inquired about this matter, and learnt what had passed, as has just been related. Therefore Yûnas returned sad and angry, thinking that if he were to go among the people they would again accuse him of falsehood. Some state that the source of evil, namely, Eblis, assumed the human form, and said to Yûnas: ‘Go not to the city, because the people will accuse thee of falsehood.’ Therefore he departed in wrath. Ebn A’bbâs—u. w. b., etc. —relates that everyone who imagines that his wrath originated from his thinking that the people would accuse him of falsehood, will be set right by the following verse which Allah uttered: ‘And thought that We could not exercise power over him,’* namely, that the affliction and chastisement [of God] could not reach him.
Tradition informs us that after the cessation of the punishment of God, Yûnas joined his family on the seashore, where he found a ship full of men who were just starting on a voyage, whereon he requested them to be likewise allowed to embark with his followers, and they replied: ‘Our ship is heavily laden; if it be convenient to thee, some of thy people may come on board, and the others may take passage in another vessel, which will follow us.’ Yûnas agreed to this proposal, placed some persons on board, and waited with his two sons on the shore for the other vessel. After awhile he perceived a ship, and, desirous to obtain a passage therein, went on board. On this occasion the foot of one of his sons slipped, he fell into the water, and was drowned; meanwhile, a wolf arrived and robbed him of his other son. After Yûnas had thus been struck by a double misfortune, he knew that a calamity sent from above was impending over him. In consequence of this accident he entered the vessel on board of which the rest of his family had embarked before, and joined it; but when the ship had begun the voyage and was well in the sea, it stood in the midst of it, as it were, on a high and dry spot, by the command of the Omnipotent Inscrutable One, whilst other vessels passed on the right and left of it, asking the crew why they were stationary, and they replied: ‘We know it not!’ Yûnas, however, said: ‘If you know not the reason, I know it.’ They pressed him, and he continued: ‘A servant has fled from his master, and has embarked on board this ship, which will not move from its place unless you throw him into the sea.’* They asked: ‘Who is that servant?’ He replied: ‘I.’ But as they knew him to be a prophet of God, they said: ‘The Lord forbid that we should throw thee into the sea; on the contrary, we consider our escape out of this vortex of perdition to depend upon thy noble existence.’ Yûnas continued: ‘Let us cast lots, and let us throw him into the water whose name comes up.’ This having been done, the name of Yûnas appeared, whereon his lordship again requested the crew to throw him overboard; but they refused, and said: ‘The lot sometimes hits wrong and sometimes right.’ Another trial was then made, but his name again came forth. Yûnas repeated his request again, and the people again demurred to eject him. The Creator therefore ordered a fish to pass round the ship with open jaws, and the people beholding the yawning throat of the monster wherever they looked, ultimately threw Yûnas into the sea.
Some assert that his lordship leapt of his own accord into the water, and that on the said occasion the fish received the following command: ‘Swallow Yûnas without in the least injuring any of his limbs; We have not made our prophet to be thy food, but have assigned thy abdomen to be his prison.’ According to some opinions, Yûnas dwelt forty days and nights in the stomach of the sea-monster. After he had suffered affliction, the Absolute Sovereign removed the veil from the vision of his intelligence, and displayed to him the strange and wonderful things of the sea, so that Yûnas occupied himself by praising the Creator. Allah—w. n. b. e.—has said: ‘And he cried out in the darkness [saying], There is no God beside Thee, praise be unto Thee! Verily, I have been one of the unjust.’* Some have said that by ‘darkness’ the obscurity of the night of the sea and of the abdomen of the fish are meant. It is related that the angels heard the voice of Yûnas, recognised it, and said, weeping: ‘O God, we hear a feeble voice from a strange place.’ The allocution then arrived: ‘It is the voice of my servant Yûnas, who has sinned, and been imprisoned in the stomach of the fish. Draw ye from the way in which I punish my servants a conclusion how I shall chastise my foes!’ After the angels had interceded for Yûnas, the Lord ordered Jebrâil to inform the fish that God was now satisfied with Yûnas, who was to be spewed out in the same locality where he had embarked on board the ship. Therefore the fish approached the shore by divine command, where it ejected Yûnas like an infant wrapped in swaddling clothes. The Lord most High and Magnificent immediately caused a gourd-tree to grow, under which Yûnas reposed, and a fawn of those prairies was inspired to feed him with milk. When Yûnas had recovered his former strength, the Lord Almighty—whose glory be magnified—ordered the sun to burn the said tree, so that it withered. The loss of that tree and the solar heat so distressed Yûnas that he wept; but the Lord—w. g. b. m.—sent him the following message by Jebrâil: ‘O Yûnas, this tree was not cherished by thy power to cause thee to deplore its disappearance with so much grief. Secondly, thou weepest more for a tree of no value than for the destruction of several thousand persons, for whom thou hast not cared in the least, and upon whose heads thou hast called down My chastisement by thy prayers.’ Hereupon Yûnas implored pardon, and took refuge with the favour of the Lord of glory.
It is related that, after Yûnas had recovered his health, the Almighty—w. n. b. e. and magnified—ordered him to return to the people, but Yûnas replied: ‘O Lord, sendest Thou me to a nation which desireth Thy Book, but [nevertheless] accuseth Thy messenger of falsehood?’ Then again the divine revelation came: ‘O Yûnas, are perchance the treasuries of My mercy in thy hands that thou wouldst withhold it from My servants? Knowest thou not that I soften obdurate hearts whenever I please, and that I open the ears of the deaf and the eyes of the blind?’ Yûnas accordingly returned towards Ninva, and met a shepherd in the desert, whom he asked who he was. The man replied: ‘I am of the people of Yûnas, the son of Matti.’* His lordship the prophet continued: ‘What news hast thou about Yûnas? What has he done with this people?’ He replied: ‘Yûnas was the best of men; but when the people accused him of falsehood, he threatened them with chastisement, and disappeared. The punishment overtook the people as he had promised. After they had despaired of finding him, they repented of their sins, turned to the Lord, and God—who is the most merciful of the merciful—washed the volumes of their transgressions with the limpid streams of pardon, and granted them deliverance from the affliction of fire.’ Then Yûnas asked the shepherd for a little milk, who, however, replied that he had none; and, swearing by the pure essence of God, said: ‘Since Yûnas left us, neither rain has fallen nor grass grown, so that the sheep must be fed on briars and thorns.’ His lordship the refuge of prophecy said: ‘I believe thou hast sworn by the God of Yûnas.’ The shepherd replied: ‘Whoever swears in our city by another than the God of the inhabitants of this world, his tongue is extracted from his throat.’ Yûnas queried: ‘Since what time has this religion originated among you?’ He replied: ‘Since the time when the affliction was removed from our people.’ Then Yûnas asked for a sheep, and, after he had touched her nipples, milk commenced to flow from them in abundance. The shepherd said: ‘If Yûnas were alive, I would say that thou art he.’ His lordship continued: ‘Go and inform the people of my arrival.’ The shepherd replied: ‘The king has declared that he would abdicate royalty in any man’s favour who may bring the news of the safety and the coming of Yûnas, and that he would gird the loins of service to his lordship. Now, if I bring this information without any guarantee [for its truth], the people will say that a shepherd covets the royal dignity, and they will kill me.’ Yûnas said: ‘In case of necessity, the sheep which I have milked and this rock whereon I am sitting will bear testimony to the truth of thy words.’ Then the shepherd went to the city to report his meeting and conversation with Yûnas; the people, however, accused him of falsehood, and determined to kill the unhappy shepherd. He replied: ‘O people, come with me to the desert, for I have an evident argument in favour of my assertion.’ He accordingly led the people to the spot where he had seen Yûnas, and produced the sheep, the rock being also a witness in his favour; but the sheep even spoke, saying: ‘Yûnas drank of my milk.’ The stone likewise confirmed the assertion of the shepherd [but it is not stated in what manner]. Therefore the people were astonished, and joyfully went in search of Yûnas, whom they discovered near the foot of a tree engaged in prayer. When the people met that exalted individual, they kissed his hands and feet, conducted him respectfully and honourably to the city whereon, by his propitious advent, comfort and prosperity originated in that country. He taught the people the ordinances of the religion and the regulations of the Law, and besought the Lord of Magnificence to allow him to travel. After obtaining permission, he departed. The king likewise abdicated his royal dignity in favour of the above-mentioned shepherd, and went away with Yûnas.
Ka’b-ullâkhbâr relates that Yûnas—u. w. b., etc.—commingled, towards the end of his life, with the inhabitants of the world, but also became the companion of hermits and monks. Before he departed this life he sent the prophet Sha’ia [Isaiah] who was his disciple, to the children of Esrâil. In the Ma’arif, however, the account of Sha’ia precedes that of Yûnas; but God knows best.