Then al-Bazzār said, “We are unaware of its being related from the Prophet except through this chain”—so stated.

Ibn Abī Ḥātim, in his Tafsīr, reports: Abū ʿAbd Allāh Aḥmad ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, the brother of Ibn Wahb, related to us; my uncle related to us; Abū Ṣakhr told me that Yazīd al-Ruqāshī had told him: I heard Anas ibn Mālik—who, to the best of my knowledge, attributes the report to the Messenger of Allah ﷺ—say that when the Prophet Jonah, peace be upon him, wished to pray with these words while he was in the belly of the fish, he said:

“O Allah, ‘There is no god but You. Glory be to You! Truly I was among the wrongdoers.’” (Q 21:87)

The plea rose and hummed beneath the Throne. The angels said, “Our Lord, a weak yet familiar voice from a distant land!”

He said, “Do you not recognise it?”

They asked, “Our Lord, who is it?”

He said, “It is My servant Jonah.”

They said, “Your servant Jonah, whose righteous deeds have ever been accepted and whose prayers have been answered?”

They added, “Our Lord, will You not show mercy for what he used to do in times of ease and thus deliver him from distress?”

He said, “Indeed.” He therefore commanded the fish, and it cast him upon the open shore.

Ibn Jarīr also transmitted it—through Yūnus, from Ibn Wahb—with the same content.

Ibn Abī Ḥātim further recorded: Abū Ṣakhr Ḥumayd ibn Ziyād said, “Ibn Qusayṭ told me, while I was narrating this report to him, that he had heard Abū Hurayrah say: ‘He was thrown upon the bare ground, and Allah caused a yaqtīn plant to grow over him.’ We asked, ‘O Abū Hurayrah, what is yaqtīn?’ He replied, ‘The gourd vine.’

“Abū Hurayrah continued: ‘Allah also provided him with a wild ewe that grazed on the earth’s vegetation; it would come, spread its legs over him, and nourish him with its milk every morning and evening until he regained his strength.’ ”

Umayya ibn Abī al-Ṣalt referred to this in a line of poetry:

In mercy He caused a gourd vine to spring up over him;
But for Allah, he would have withered away.

This chain, too, is unusual; Yazīd al-Ruqāshī is weak, yet the account is strengthened by the earlier narration of Abū Hurayrah, just as that one is reinforced by this—Allah knows best.

The Almighty says: “So We cast him”--that is, We flung him--“upon the bare shore,” meaning a barren place devoid of any trees, stripped of vegetation; “while he was sick,” that is, physically feeble. Ibn Masʿūd said: “He was like a fledgling, not