The Story of Prophet Yunus for Kids

Every child knows the version with the whale. The Qur'an's account of Prophet Yunus, alayhi salaam, is stranger and better than the one they have heard, and it ends with a dua that Muslims have been making ever since.

The prophet who left

Yunus was sent to the people of Nineveh, a great city in what is now northern Iraq. He called them to worship Allah alone, and for a long time they refused. And Yunus, worn down, left. He went to the shore and boarded a ship, before Allah had given him permission to go.

This is the part most retellings soften, and it is worth keeping. A prophet of Allah made a mistake. Children are told constantly that prophets were the best of people, which is true, and they can also hold that one of them once walked away and that Allah corrected him with enormous tenderness.

The storm and the great fish

At sea, the ship was caught in a violent storm. The Qur'an says lots were drawn and Yunus was among those thrown out. And a great fish swallowed him.

Now picture what a child pictures: inside the fish, inside the sea, inside the night. The scholars call these the three darknesses, and Yunus says the word himself in his dua.

The dua in the dark

And from inside all that darkness, Yunus called out. The Qur'an records exactly what he said: La ilaha illa anta, subhanaka, inni kuntu mina-z-zalimin. There is no god except You; glory be to You; indeed I was among the wrongdoers.

Look at the shape of it. He does not begin by asking for anything. He begins by declaring who Allah is, then praising Him, and only then admits his own mistake. He never actually asks to be let out.

And Allah says: So We responded to him and saved him from the distress. And thus do We save the believers. The Prophet, peace be upon him, said that no Muslim ever makes this dua for anything except that Allah answers him. It is short enough for a six year old to learn tonight.

The city that was saved

The ending is the part almost nobody tells. While Yunus was gone, his people believed. All of them. The Qur'an says they were more than a hundred thousand, and that Allah removed the punishment from them and let them enjoy life for a time. It is the only city in the Qur'an that turned back in time. Yunus thought he had failed, and he had not.

What children take from it

• You can always call on Allah. Yunus was inside a fish, at the bottom of the sea, in the dark, after making a mistake, and Allah heard him.
• Admitting you were wrong is the start of the way out, not the end of the world.
• You often cannot see the good that is happening. A whole city changed while Yunus was in the dark thinking it had all come to nothing.

Read more about Prophet Yunus → The full story is narrated in the Sukun Kids app.