His saying, exalted and glorified is He:

﴿And the one of the fish, when he went off angry, and thought that We would not constrain him, then he called out in the darkness, 'There is no deity except You; glorified are You. Indeed, I have been of the wrongdoers.'﴾ ﴿So We responded to him and saved him from the distress. And thus do We save the believers.﴾

The explanation: And remember the one of the fish, and the fish is the whale, and his companion is Yunus ibn Mattah, peace be upon him. He was attributed to the whale that swallowed him in the situation that will be mentioned in its appropriate place. He is the prophet of the people of Nineveh. This is the one about whom the Messenger of Allah, blessings and peace be upon him, said: 'Whoever says that I am better than Yunus ibn Mattah has lied.' And in another hadith: 'It is not appropriate for anyone to say I am better than Yunus ibn Mattah.' This hadith and his saying: 'Do not prefer me over Musa' may seem to contradict his saying, peace and blessings be upon him, on the pulpit: 'I am the master of the children of Adam, and there is no pride in that.'

And the separation from this is in two ways: One of them is his mention to the people, which is that his saying: 'I am the master of the children of Adam' is delayed in history, and that it is a rank that Allah, the Exalted, informed him of, which he did not know at the time of those other sayings. The second way, which I consider, is that it aligns with the state of the Prophet, peace be upon him, that he was only prohibited from preferring between two mentioned individuals and took the path of humility while he remains the master of the children of Adam. However, he prohibited being preferred over Musa, fearing that the Jews would become angry and increase their aversion to faith. The reason for the hadith necessitates this, and that is that a Jew said: 'No, by the One who preferred Musa over the worlds.' A man from the Ansar said to him: 'Do you say this while the Messenger of Allah, blessings and peace be upon him, is among us?' The matter was raised to the Prophet, peace be upon him, and he prohibited the preference over Musa, and he, peace and blessings be upon him, prohibited the preference over Yunus so that no one would think of Yunus, peace be upon him, as having a deficiency in virtue because of what happened to him. Thus, his prohibition, peace be upon him, from preferring over a specific person, and his saying, peace and blessings be upon him, in a third hadith: 'Do not prefer between the prophets.' All of this is alongside his saying: 'I am the master of the children of Adam, and there is no pride.' The generality of the virtue for him without associating it with anyone else is clear and correct. Reflect on this, for it is evident. Umar, may Allah be pleased with him, said to Al-Hutay'ah: 'Praise your praised one and do not prefer some people over others.'

Qadi Abu Muhammad, may Allah have mercy on him, said:

And the term 'master' and the term 'better' are the same. This is another principle of reconciling between the hadiths that removes what is thought to be contradiction.

And His saying, glorified and exalted is He: "Mughāḍiban" (angry), it is said that he became angry with his people when their matter became prolonged and their obstinacy increased, so he went fleeing by himself. And Allah, glorified and exalted is He, had commanded him to remain with them and to be patient with their calling. So his sin was in opposing this command. It has been narrated that he was young and could not bear the burdens of prophethood and he became overwhelmed under it as the young shoots become overwhelmed under the weight. For this reason, it was said to the Prophet, blessings and peace be upon him: "And do not be like the companion of the fish" [Al-Qalam: 48], meaning: be patient and endure the hardship with your people. A group said that he became angry with the king who was over his people.

Qadi Abu Muhammad, may Allah have mercy on him, said: This is similar to the first in what befalls Yunus, peace be upon him. Al-Hasan ibn Abi Al-Hasan and others said: He only went angry with his Lord and was provoked by Iblis. They narrated that when Yunus, peace be upon him, found the matter of his people prolonged, he asked Allah for their punishment. He was told: The punishment will come to them on such and such day. So Yunus, peace be upon him, informed them of that, and they said: If he leaves us, then the punishment will descend, and if he remains among us, we will not care. So when it was dawn on that day, Yunus stood up and left. They were certain of the punishment, so they all went out to the open, and they separated the young animals from their mothers and they supplicated and repented, so Allah lifted the punishment from them. Yunus remained in the place he had gone to, waiting for the news. When he knew that they were not punished, he was grieved that they counted him a liar. He said: By Allah, I will never return to them. It has been narrated that it was part of their religion to kill the liar, so he became angry then with his Lord and went out on his face until he entered a ship in the sea.

Qadi Abu Muhammad, may Allah have mercy on him, said: And in this saying is a weakness that is unmistakable, which cannot be attributed to a prophet.

People disagreed regarding His saying, glorified and exalted is He: "So he thought that We would not be able to him". A group said: Iblis provoked him and led him to think that Allah would not be able to punish him.

Qadi Abu Muhammad, may Allah have mercy on him, said: This saying is rejected.

Another group said: The meaning of "he thought that We would not be able to him" is that He would not restrict him in his religion, from His saying, glorified and exalted is He: "He extends provision to whom He wills and restricts it". Another group said: It is about predestination, meaning he thought that Allah would not decree punishment upon him. Another group said: The speech is in the meaning of a question, meaning: Did he think that We would not be able to him? And Munthir ibn Sa'id narrated that some of them read: "Did he think?" with an alif. And Al-Zuhri read: "We are able to him" with a damm on the noon and a fatha on the qaf and a shadda on the dal. And Al-Hasan read: "He thought that We would not be able to him," and also from him: "We are able to him." After this speech, there is much omission that has been condensed for its clarification in other than this verse. The meaning is: So he entered the sea and so on until the fish swallowed him and he was in the darkness of its belly.

And the people differed regarding the gathering of "the darknesses"; what is meant by it? One group said: the darkness of the night, the darkness of the sea, and the darkness of the fish. Another group said: the darkness of the sea, the darkness of the fish that swallowed the first fish, and the darkness of the first fish that swallowed Yunus, peace be upon him.

Qadi Abu Muhammad, may Allah have mercy on him, said: It is correct to express "the darknesses" only in reference to the belly of the first fish, as He said: "in the depths of the well" [Yusuf: 15]. And all its directions are darkness, so its plural form is permissible. It has been narrated that Yunus, peace be upon him, prostrated in the belly of the fish when he heard the glorification of the whales in the depths of the sea. Then he said in his supplication: "O Allah, I have taken for You a mosque in a place that no one has taken before me." And "that" is explanatory, similar to His saying, "that you walk," and there is consideration in this. And His saying: "from the wrongdoers" means in what he opposed by abandoning the perseverance with his people and being patient with them. This is the best of the interpretations, and there has been mention of others. So Allah answered him and brought him to the land, and the description of this will come in its place. And "the distress" is what he experienced when the fish swallowed him.

The majority of the readers recited: "We will save" with two noon letters, the second being silent. And Asim - in the narration of Abu Bakr - read: "We save" with one noon letter that is pronounced and the jīm is doubled. It has also been narrated from Abu Amr, and a group read: "We will save" with the first noon letter pronounced and the second open, and the jīm is doubled. As for the first and third readings, they are clear, and the first is a transitive verb with the hamzah, while the other is with the doubling. As for the middle reading, which is with one noon letter pronounced, a doubled jīm, and a silent yā, Abu Ali said: there is no basis for it, and it is merely an error from the listener. This is because Asim read: "We will save" and the second noon cannot be pronounced because it is hidden with these letters, meaning the jīm and what follows it. Thus, the concealment resembles it to the merging, and it is impossible for the original to be "We will save" and then the joining of the two noon letters leads to merging one of them into the jīm; because the gathering of two similar letters only calls for that if their movements are consistent. And it is impossible for the original to be "We save" and the yā is silent, and the object that has not been named by its doer is the source, as if he said: "The believers are saved"; because this only occurs in necessity, and it is not in the Book of Allah, and the evidence for it is the saying of the poet:

And if Qufayrah had given birth to a puppy, it would have been cursed by that puppy the dogs.

Also, the action that is built for the object, if it is past, its end is not silent.

Qadi Abu Muhammad, may Allah have mercy on him, said: And the mushafs have one noon letter written as such, since the second noon is hidden.