Shared story · 5 min
Jonah and the great fish
Is anywhere too dark to pray?
Shared Stories · Jonah and the great fish
Jonah (peace be upon him) runs from his mission, is thrown from a ship, and is swallowed by a great fish. In the darkness, he prays.
In the Torah and the rabbis
The book of Jonah ends with God's own question about mercy, for a great city “wherein are more than sixscore thousand persons… and also much cattle” (Jonah 4:11, JPS 1917). Jews read it on the afternoon of Yom Kippur.
In the Gospels and Christian tradition
Jesus (peace be upon him) speaks of “the sign of Jonah”: three days in the fish, read by Christians as a sign of the resurrection (Matthew 12:40).
In the Qur'an
His prayer in the darkness, “There is no god but You. Glory be to You. I have been among the wrongdoers” (21:87), is one of the best-loved Muslim prayers. His people are the one town whose turning back benefited them (10:98). The Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) said no one should say “I am better than Jonah son of Matta” (Bukhari 3395).
Same and different
Mercy reaches even enemies, and turning back works, in all three. Scripture says a great fish (Hebrew dag gadol, Arabic al-ḥūt); many say a whale.
We never picture any prophet or Mary. Each panel is checked by a reader from that tradition before this page goes public.
