Home > Surah 37 - Those Who Set the Ranks
1. Compression of Biblical Geography and Timeline:
In the Biblical account (Jonah 4:5–6), the shade plant grows overnight much later in the story, while Jonah is sitting in the desert outside Nineveh watching the city. The Quran collapses these separate events, merging his ejection from the fish with his experience outside Nineveh to make a gourd instantly grow as a post-whale remedy on the beach.
2. Secondhand Oral Transmission:
Misplacing the gourd plant directly onto the seashore reveals that the narrative relies on a loose, conflated oral recollection of the Book of Jonah rather than an accurate historical or textual record.
Following a brief mention of Jonah's time inside the great fish, the text details his physical state upon being expelled back onto land.
The Quran Verse
Surah 37:145–146:
And We cast him onto the open shore while he was ill. And We caused to grow over him a gourd vine (shajaratan min yaqṭīn).
The text describes the gourd plant growing immediately over Jonah right as he hits the shore to nurse him back to health.
The Biblical Source:
In the Book of Jonah (Jonah 4:5–6), Jonah is explicitly described as leaving the city of Nineveh after preaching to the people. He builds a temporary shelter in the desert to watch what happens to the city, and it is there that God causes a plant (traditionally a castor-bean or gourd plant) to grow overnight to provide him with shade from the sun.
The Quran collapses the geography and the timeline. It merges Jonah’s exit from the fish with his later experiences in the desert outside Nineveh, turning a natural plant that grew overnight into an immediate, magical post-whale medical remedy on the beach. This indicates that the author was operating from a loose, secondhand oral recollection of the biblical narrative rather than an exact historical account.