وَذَا ٱلنُّونِ إِذ ذَّهَبَ مُغَٰضِبًا فَظَنَّ أَن لَّن نَّقْدِرَ عَلَيْهِ فَنَادَىٰ فِى ٱلظُّلُمَٰتِ أَن لَّآ إِلَٰهَ إِلَّآ أَنتَ سُبْحَٰنَكَ إِنِّى كُنتُ مِنَ ٱلظَّٰلِمِينَ · فَٱسْتَجَبْنَا لَهُۥ وَنَجَّيْنَٰهُ مِنَ ٱلْغَمِّ وَكَذَٰلِكَ نُۨجِى ٱلْمُؤْمِنِينَ
Wa Dha'n-Nūni idh dhahaba mughāḍiban fa-ẓanna an lan naqdira ʿalayhi fa-nādā fi'ẓ-ẓulumāti an lā ilāha illā anta subḥānaka innī kuntu mina'ẓ-ẓālimīn · Fa'stajabnā lahu wa najjaynāhu mina'l-ghamm, wa kadhālika nunji'l-muʾminīn
"And Dhū'l-Nūn, when he went off angry and thought We would not straiten him. Then he called out in the darknesses: 'There is no god but You. Glory be to You. I have indeed been among the wrongdoers.' · We answered him and delivered him from the grief. Thus do We deliver the believers."
And this name is the third designation the Qurʾān uses for the same person. All three are in this commentary, and the comparison is wholly a datum of wording.
| Sūra | The designation | Its sense | The context |
|---|---|---|---|
| al-Qalam 68/48 | ṣāḥibu'l-ḥūt | "The man of the fish / its companion" | A negative example: wa lā takun ka-… |
| al-Ṣāffāt 37/139 | Yūnus | His own name | la-mina'l-mursalīn — as a messenger |
| al-Anbiyāʾ 21/87 | Dhu'n-Nūn | "The man of the fish" (nūn — fish) | Inside the series, with his call |
The first two columns were tabulated in detail at al-Ṣāffāt on 37/139-148. I rely on that treatment.
And what al-Anbiyāʾ adds must be recorded: al-Qalam says ḥūt, al-Anbiyāʾ nūn — both mean fish. That is, two different sūras name the same person by the same means (the fish) but with two different words.
| Verse | How named | Who |
|---|---|---|
| 87 | Dhu'n-Nūn — by an attribute | Jonah |
| 91 | wa'llatī aḥṣanat farjahā — by an act | (Her name is not given in the verse) |
There are sixteen names in the series; two of them are unnamed. This is a fact countable from the text, and I shall take it up separately at the ninety-first verse.
"Ibāq is a slave's running away from his master without leave. […] The word is not used in Arabic of any other kind of flight."
| al-Ṣāffāt 37/140 | al-Anbiyāʾ 21/87 | |
|---|---|---|
| The verb | abaqa — the flight of a runaway slave | dhahaba — he went (a neutral verb) |
| The qualification | ila'l-fulki'l-mashḥūn — a direction is given | mughāḍiban — a state is given |
| The harshness | High — the word by itself carries an accusation | Low — the verb is neutral, the state explanatory |
Two sūras tell the same departure with two different verbs. I record this as an observation about wording.
Mughāḍiban — root غ-ض-ب, a Form III active participle, in the accusative as a circumstantial qualifier. Form III (mufāʿala) conveys reciprocity in Arabic. And there is disagreement about who was angry with whom:
| View | With whom the anger is |
|---|---|
| 1 | With his people — over their denial |
| 2 | With his own situation — over some distress |
I transmit the disagreement and do not impose a preference. And I enter into no detail the Qurʾān has not given.
And this sentence is one of the places handled most carefully in the classical commentaries. The source of the disagreement is the two distinct senses of the root ق-د-ر.
| View | What naqdira ʿalayh means | Its ground |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | "That We would not straiten him" — qadara ʿalayh is used in Arabic in the sense of "he narrowed his provision, he pressed him" | The Qurʾān carries the same usage: wa man qudira ʿalayhi rizquh (al-Ṭalāq 65/7); fa-qadara ʿalayhi rizqah (al-Fajr 89/16) |
| 2 | "That We would have no power over him" — the root's sense of "power" | The sense of the word that first comes to mind |
| 3 | The sentence is read as a question: "did he think We would have no power?" | The explanation of some of the grammarians |
And I enter a note about the language, and it is not a preference: the core sense of the root ق-د-ر was treated at al-Qadr, at al-Qamar on 54/49 and at al-Zumar on 39/67, and it was recorded there: the core of the root is measure. From the sense "to measure" arise both "to have power" and "to narrow" — to set a measure to a thing is to limit it. That is, both readings are two extensions of the same root.
Ẓulumāt — plural: darknesses. In the classical commentaries several explanations are transmitted of whose darknesses they are (of the sea, of the night, of the fish's belly). The verse does not enumerate them; nor do I. What is to be recorded is that the word comes in the plural: not a single darkness.
| Part | What it does |
|---|---|
| lā ilāha illā anta | Affirming oneness — it defines the one addressed |
| subḥānaka | Declaring transcendence — it clears the one addressed |
| innī kuntu mina'ẓ-ẓālimīn | Admission — it names the speaker himself |
And the order must be recorded: first He, then I. Two thirds of the prayer are about the one addressed.
I record this as my own reading, its ground being the elements of the sentence: like Job's prayer in the eighty-third verse, this prayer too is without a petition. Both prayers state a condition, and both are answered with the same sentence: fa'stajabnā lah.
"The verse does not say 'because he glorified', it says 'because he was one of those who glorify'. That is, what saves is not an act at that moment but a belonging."
| al-Ṣāffāt 37/143 | al-Anbiyāʾ 21/87 | |
|---|---|---|
| What is said | kāna mina'l-musabbiḥīn — he was one of those who glorify | subḥānaka — "glory be to You" |
| The root | س-ب-ح | س-ب-ح |
| The form | An attribute — belonging to a group | The act itself — the words spoken |
That is, al-Ṣāffāt says he was among those who glorify; al-Anbiyāʾ transmits the wording of that glorification.
I record this as my own reading, its ground being the root shared by the two verses: the two sūras do not conflict, they complete one another. One gives the quality, the other the text. I do not claim that the two sūras refer to one another; what I record is the sharing of the root.
| al-Ṣāffāt 37/139-148 | al-Anbiyāʾ 21/87-88 | |
|---|---|---|
| Length | Ten verses | Two verses |
| The ship, the lot, the fish | Present — in detail | Absent |
| The text of the prayer | Absent | Present |
| The ground of the deliverance | kāna mina'l-musabbiḥīn — a past attribute | fa'stajabnā lahu — the answer at that moment |
| The people's belief | Present — fa-āmanū | Absent |
| Generalisation | Absent | Present — wa kadhālika nunji'l-muʾminīn |
I record this as my own reading, its ground being the sentence itself: the verse makes a prophet's deliverance an example. And this is the only sentence of generalisation in the sūra's series.
A note on the variant readings: differences are transmitted in the spelling and the pronunciation of the verb (nunjī / nunajjī). The sense does not markedly change; I name no reciter.