預言者Yunusの冒険談
Story of Yunus, a Prophet of Allah
Chapter VI
Yunus was now standing on the elbow part of the peninsula of lava, which jutted out from the land and curved to form the bay. There were numerous bats in the air flying landward. He, then, listened to the echoing sound of waves seeming to come from the exit of the underground tunnel opened into the sea. He could only see the tremendous foam produced in its vicinities. He realized, to his relief and gratitude to the bats, that had he come out from that opening of the tunnel, he would have been either drawn away from the land by the speedy current and lost, or carried back by the high waves and crushed against the lava.
He explored around a little and on the left side of the peninsula, as he looked landward, he could barely see the far end part of the beach he had been. He could see the pool he had made to trap fish. Then, he climbed to the top of the ridge of the peninsula and found himself seeing the stern of the ship, floating in the bay. Again, he saw no men or women in it nor on the shore.
The sun was yet high above the arched horizon. It seemed possible to get to the beach on foot for the steepness of the peninsula was moderate near the water’s edge, and waves were low inside the bay. There were even some sandbanks too.
Now, he crawled on four and went down backward on the peninsula toward the water’s edge and then sideway as far as the place where the sea was shallow enough for him to wade. Then, he jumped into the water and waded in it and walked on the sandbanks alternately and reached the ship at last.
Its white sails were hoisted; but, he confirmed that it was not anchored nor moored; it was stayed only by the weight of its foremost part, which was stranded on the beach.
Hoping to find someone, Yunus called out several times, “Hello! Is anyone there?” But no answer came, although there were signs of human habitation, as stated earlier.
Then, he went as far as the far end of beach and found a pool, which seemed at least partly contained by manpower, and in which fish could have been trapped for catching or a person could have bathed safe from sharks. There the cape was steep along this pool, but not so much beyond it.
Swimming pool safe from sharks
In addition to the waterfall from the top of the cliff, there was a spring of fresh water near this cape, and the water formed a narrow rivulet and issued into this pool. Yunus washed his body in the rivulet, for his body was smelling awful on account of the bats’ dung in addition to the stomach acids of the whale.
Far inland from the beach he could find familiar trees that bear fruits such as fig, grape, apricot, and pomegranate. They must have been planted by the people who had come on the ship. There were also tilled fields where barley and rice could have been planted. Also, there were trees for fuel. But, Yunus could see that the fields were not harvested for a long time, for there were many things decayed, bitten by birds and animals, overgrown or withered. It appeared the place was deserted long ago and some stronger plants survived and grew on their own producing but lean produce. But there were some fruits and vegetables that seemed yet good to eat.
So, hungry Yunus took some of the fruits from the trees and ate them as he walked back to inspect the ship. He noticed the raven had again perched on the top of the mast, as if it were as much a part of the ship as the figurehead, of which there was none to this ship.
The ship’s appearance convinced him that it was not made by Hebrew or any other people he knew, for it had such a strange build that he had never seen the like in reality or in picture before. It had also a beautiful profile. There were no windows for rowing, and the mast and sails seemed the only system for the drive.
As he was wondering how he could get on board the ship, the raven went down and disappeared in the ship. Then, it reappeared on the gunwale of the port side with a rope in its black beak, and as it jumped and flew out of the ship, a part of a set of rope ladder connected to the rope in the beak of the raven was pulled out of the ship and the raven let the rope go and went away. Yunus waded into the sea, and pulled the beak-worn end of the rope until the entire set of the rope ladder came out and hang on the port side; then, he climbed the ladder, and went on board the ship.
He called and asked if anyone was there again, but there was no response. He searched everywhere but found no one dead or alive. Not even a rat was seen or heard. Nor could he find any food or drink preserved. Nor was there any trash so that it was as clean as a temple. The ship seemed completely deserted, to his discouragement.
Although he was no specialist at ship, even he could tell the ship was excellently built. There were few cracks and loose parts, and the bottom of the hull was virtually free of leaked-in water. He looked for any written record or map that might tell him where the ship came from or where she was now. But there was not a stroke of scribble or graffiti on the walls nor on the gunwale.
However, it chanced that when he leaned over the gunwale on the starboard side to inspect the hull of the ship for any writing, his eyes caught sight of something unnatural through the transparent sea water. Only a small part of it was exposed from under the sand covering it, but it was enough to tell him that the substance had a rectangular shape, something hard to find in nature. It looked like a plate of some metal, probably copper or brass, for it was mostly rusted in pale green. He went to the port side and climbed down the rope ladder and went round the front of the ship to the spot, and dived and got the plate. It was thinner than he had thought. He went to the shore with it and found small letters engraved on one side of it. He scrubbed off the rust carefully with fine sand. To his great gladness, the letters were Hebrew, his native language.
The words were chiefly many names of men. It was a sort of genealogy and started with the name “Joseph,” with an explanation of him reading “who was the son of Jacob, who was sold into Egypt, and who was preserved by the hand of the Lord, that he might preserve his father, Jacob, and all his household from perishing with famine…” Yunus instantly knew that this Joseph was the one who became the second powerful man in Egypt next to Pharaoh, the king. He felt affection toward the people that created the brass plate, for he was a Benjamite, an offspring of Benjamin, the younger brother of this Joseph from the same mother Rachel.
The fact that the writing was in Hebrew encouraged him too, for he thought the land he had been spewed on by the white whale was either somewhere on the Israeli coast or somewhere across a sea from it, rather than anywhere he had never heard of. But he was wrong, for he was on the eastern coast of a continent which is now called North America.
He went into the plantation to pick some fruits from the trees, for he had decided to pass the night in a cabin of the ship. It was much safer to be on the ship, for at night various animals might come for food from the inland, which was far deeper here than at the beach he had landed. Besides, on the land side he had not been able to find a shelter, which was not strange, for if the people who had once inhabited there were indeed Israelites, they would normally use tents for their shelter and remove them upon departure.
Now, although most of the vegetables and fruit were less appetizing there, Yunus could expect to get some eggs, for there were some birds which had nests in the trees. So, Yunus climbed some trees and got eggs from them and cooked them sunny-side up on the brass plate in the sun.
He sharpened the longer side edges of the plate by grinding each edge with a rough surface of a shell, and used the plate to cut several kinds of fruits off the trees or vines. He picked watermelons more than any other kind for water supply, although they were small and not ripe yet.
When he had collected fruits of his choice, he brought them by the bow of the ship and threw them into the ship so they would land in it. Had Yunus known that in the morning next day he would find himself in the midst of the vast ocean with no lands in view, he would have collected and stored food in far greater amount. But he had picked only enough for the day and the next morning.
The sun was setting beautifully in the far ocean horizon, and the full moon appeared just above his head. (This meant that the waters of the seas were being pulled towards where Yunus was, and this fact would contribute to what would happen over the night.)
After throwing all the food he had collected into the ship Yunus went in the sea with the wooden puppet in his left arm as a float and the brass plate in his right hand as a paddle. The tide had risen so high that now he had to swim several meters to reach the rope ladder, and he was not a good swimmer yet.
When he was swimming and almost reached the rope ladder, he heard the raven cawing sharply from behind and it flew over him at low altitude, and as he looked at it, his eyes saw a vertical fin approaching swiftly through the waves along the side of the ship. He found through the water that it was a huge shark and aiming at him. Yunus trembled and hastily caught the rope ladder but had not time enough to clear himself from the water; he asked Allah the Omnipotent for help. But the shark shot out of the water, face-to-face with him, with its terrible shining jaws wide agape, like the statue of a monstrous god he had seen in Dilmun, causing the prophet to scream. He saw the serrated edges of the sharp triangular teeth of the huge predator gleam reflecting the setting sun. He froze. But then he did something he would have never done if he had time to think. It was as if he himself were a puppet manipulated by some puppeteer and he only moved accordingly as what the manipulator intended: Yunus, in the blink of an eye, pushed his right arm between the very jaws of the shark with the brass plate held such that one of its diagonal lines came vertical in the mouth. The shark proceeded to bite the arm of the prophet only to feel sharp pains in the upper palate and the tongue, which slowed the speed of the closing of its jaws, and soon afterwards its eyes were veiled in darkness of death, for the upper corner of the plate cut through its tiny brain and then came out of its flat forehead; Yunus had pulled back his arm narrowly before the jaws closed. The fact that the shark’s bones are soft cartilage and its biting force as strong as a vise contributed to the sudden victory of the prophet over the shark.
The blood spread in the sea quickly prompted by the rough wriggling movement of the yet-living body of the dead shark, and attracted other sharks. Yunus saw more than a few fins approaching at high speeds. He hurried to climb the rope ladder, but a shark leaped up high and grabbed the wooden puppet’s only leg with its teeth. The shark was so heavy that Yunus abandoned the puppet, and he climbed up and threw his body over the gunwale without looking back. Then, he hurriedly lifted and hauled in the rope ladder, for he was so terrified and upset that he could not help but fear the sharks might climb the ladder, which of course they are not able to – but such was the dread he had from being face-to-face with the monstrous shark rampant and agape. He heard the sound of the sharks fighting to eat the dead body of their cohort until late night.
Only after the sharks had gone away, Yunus recovered himself and started eating his supper. But he was more tired than hungry that he fell asleep while eating, and did not wake up until the sun rich in ultraviolet rays started scorching his skin on the next morning. He had a rather lengthy dream, in which he heard a strange story.
This time the storyteller was the raven. It came into his dream, or rather he was awaken by it in his dreamless sleep, and the dream started. The raven spoke in Hebrew (as did the white whale, incidentally), but it used so many strange archaic words and pronounced modern words in such an archaic way that Yunus would not have understood the raven’s talk at all if he had heard it when awake, but strangely enough, and perhaps it was the magic of dreams, he understood every sentence.
Chapter VIII
Story told by the raven:
“Yunus, Messenger of Allah, I am the raven you saw today. Like you, I am a servant of Allah, the Almighty. But I was not so when I was young.
“When I was very young, I thought I was something what I would later know as god. For I was always in the center of the little world that surrounded and protected me. I even thought that everyone around me knew that I was a newly born god raven and they were supposed to help me grow up to be a king of them. But as I grew older I found that in fact I was neither a god nor a king. I was only a megalomaniac raven, thinking myself to be almighty and immortal. It is not very rare among raven boys to fall into such illusion, but I was exceptional in that I had had a few occasions to see some ghostlike thing when I was very young and thus could not easily deny the illusion was a fake.
“We had a king raven in our kin, and he was considered a god too. He enjoyed absolute authority and ruled us at will. We were educated to worship the raven god and die for him if necessary.
“But I had doubts about his divinity, and eventually stopped worshipping the raven god and started neglecting the duties and rules of the kin. For I thought that he was not different from any of us ravens. I even thought he was not superior to me in anything but family lineage. He was only a son of the former raven god, whom he succeeded when he died. I stopped praying for him or in his name, and stopped dedicating any food or precious things to him.
“Then, the king’s bodyguards found it and tried to arrest me. I barely escaped them. Thus, I freed myself from all the bondages that had bound me to the rules of the kin, and this made me feel free and very happy.
“I went to many lands and islands and saw more or less similar systems everywhere, where powerful god-kings reigned.
“By and by I realized that all living creatures are doomed to die, for I had never met a living being, animal or man, that could prove that they had lived longer than anyone’s memory. It was a painful discovery, especially for a megalomaniac raven. Night after night it worried and anguished me. I asked, ‘Is it possible that even I should get old and weak and eventually perish from the world one day?’
“Then, I heard and learned about a utopia or heaven where some selected ones are allowed by gods to live forever after their earthly deaths. Thus, I began to seek such gods capable of making me immortal in utopia. If I find one of such gods, I would worship him or her very diligently and will even sacrifice myself to them so as to be made immortal. Not that I wanted to be a god myself but I wanted to be an immortal servant of an immortal god.
“Then, after long flights in search of such god, I came to a land richer in green than other places. I stayed there, and saw a group of men carry lumbers up to a hilltop, and I went to see what they would do with the lumbers. Many birds and animals as well as a mob of men and women were watching too. At first, I thought they were constructing a shrine for their god. Then, their building gradually turned out to be a ship. But a ship on a hilltop was unheard of. They were built only by sea or riverside. So, I went into the unfinished ship to inspect. I found there were three floors, which each had many small rooms; above the top floor were many wooden bars spanning across the width of the ship, parallel to each other, at different heights, and I perched on one of them and watched the men and women working underneath. One day they started using pitch. It of course smelled bad. So, I stopped coming to the ship.
“Among the shipwrights there was one who was distinguished in his look and demeaner and he seemed the leader of the group. The others called him Noah. Occasionally, he gathered his men and women in the shadow of the ship and spoke to them. I heard him use the word ‘Allah’ often. So, one day I pronounced that word myself, imitating the man, “Allah! Allah! Allah!” The men and women looked up at me, and some laughed and pointed at me. Thereupon Noah called me ‘a servant of Allah.’ Then, I thought Allah was the name of the god they worshipped. After that I began to be able to understand little by little the meaning of Noah’s speeches – especially when he used the word “Allah.”
“ One hot day I felt so thirsty that I left the hill and went to find water to drink. The water pool I found was not deep enough to bathe my body in. I could only heal my thirst. I perched in one of the trees, by which the pool was surrounded.
“Now, it was then and there that I found a female raven of my kind perched in a tree not very far from the one I was in, and I thought it was continually eyeing me. So, I cawed and asked her why she was watching me. Then, she said that she had come from the same kin that I had belonged to and that she had been always attracted by me for my braveness and that she had even adored me as her idol. So, I responded to her and said that there had been many young ravens that adored me, males and females, for my handsomeness and unequalled size. Then, she said that when she had seen me dispelled from the kin she had decided to leave her family and follow me wherever I was to go; and hence she had come there. Upon this, I flew to her tree and mated her, and instantly fell in love with her. So, thereafter we were always together. We slept in the same tree near the pool, from which we could see the ship being built.
“Then, it occurred to me that although I had been freed from all the bondages that had prevented me from seeking the true god, now I was newly bound to this female raven, but that this bondage was good. Whereupon, it occurred to me that even if I were to become an immortal raven, if she did not, then there would be no joy. I thought: ‘To be truly a happy one ever after, I must always be with her.’ So, she must become immortal too, or I shall feel lonely forever, and my immortality in a utopia would be meaningless.
“I continued to ponder long and deep and came to a thought that it is not a single person that could ever be immortal but it must be a love that binds lovers together that could be truly immortal. And love cannot be accomplished without an object of it. It is known that a couple of male raven and female raven through their love beget new ravens and thus the couple would be sort of immortal by virtues of their off-springs continuing endlessly. But what I believed, and believe yet now, is that any two beings which love each other truly would get a permission to live forever in the heavenly land which the true gods reign. It can be any relationship between two beings, so long as a true love is connecting the two. On the other hand, I thought, one can love himself or herself strongly enough to reach the realms of happiness unsurpassed by the former cases, as they say gods are capable of. Anyway, I thought we regular creatures are more apt to reach such love through a love between male and female, and I put my trust and hope in this love with my mate as a ticket to utopia.
“You, godly man Yunus, may say that I got this extravagant idea because I was young and beside myself with the joy of love in which I had fallen in with the female raven. But, after many, many years, I still believe these things to be true. I may be a mortal being, but this love of mine cannot be so. This love must be eternal, for we two could not believe we stop loving each other even after our physical deaths. I even felt that the joy of our love between me and her is not a bit inferior to the supreme ecstasies gods and goddesses in heaven enjoy among themselves. And some clever one said ‘Life may be short but love is eternal.’
“Then, I realized that immortality is, on the contrary, a very fearful thing, a hell, if one lives forever without his or her love – or without anything that make you oblivious to the passing of time. Immortality is only endurable if one is with one’s love, or something you love. Everyone may or may not live forever, but this eternity will be either heaven or hell, depending upon whether you can enjoy your time. If you have a lover it’s easier to forget the passing of time. But if you are alone it’s difficult not to be bored unless you sufficiently love your being yourself. In other words, if you are alone and do not like yourself, eternity is too long to bear. So, I decided that I should first accomplish making our love to be worthy of eternity, before seeking an immortal god to help me and my mate be immortal. I decided to love this female raven truly and endlessly and thus prepare myself to be immortal spiritually, if not physically. And I also believed that, even without a god to help us, I sort of had found a god in my mate and maybe vice versa so that we might ourselves be able to make each other immortal and happy through our true love. So, I thought this new chain or bond which bound me to the she-raven was a happy one, a ticket to the happy eternity.
“Such were some of my thoughts, which I talked to my mate in the joyous chats we shared with each other in that hill, where day by day men proceeded with the construction of the godly ship.
“Then, when the ship was complete with a roof fixed on top of it, Noah began to entice animals to come into the ship with food and water, which had become difficult to get, for by that time the land had been suffering from drought and famine. Many people and animals were weakening and older ones were beginning to die. But we birds were afraid to enter the ship for we would lose the freedom of flying in such a windowless building. There was only one door to enter the ship. It was made through a side of the lower part of the ship and not large enough for many animals to pass through so that only small children or babies of such large animal species could enter. We watched them go in, but only a pair of any kind seemed allowed to pass. We kept watching the door as we suffered from the pain of hunger and thirst. Then, I recollected that Noah had called me ‘a servant of Allah.’ To be really so, I thought I should be with Noah and help him in whatever he had intended to do with the ship.
So, I said to my mate that we might as well try to fly through that door to see if we could survive in that ship. She agreed but not very positively. She said she had seen no bird enter it yet.
“And, look, when I was about to fly to lead her, we saw a lightening in the blue sky and then loud sound of thunders. Clouds gathered above us from nowhere and the blue sky got darker, and strong winds began to blow from all directions and the dark clouds at last spread all over and eventually heavy rain began to pour like many water falls. At first it was a joy for we could heal our thirst; but soon this was terrible. Many birds began to fly seeking protection, and we could not see through the air because of the heavy rain and the many wings of flying birds.
“I told my mate, ‘Fly, and let us get in that ship shrine through that door before it is shut!’ She flied up and I went after her, but soon I missed her in the air darkened by many rain drops and thousands of flattering wings of birds. I looked for her black body very hard but soon my eyes were wet with rain and could not open them more than a moment. Many birds shot toward the ship and I saw a human hand trying to shut the door. So, I said to myself, ‘Surely she must by now have made through that door, for I commanded her to do so.’ So, I flew straight to the door and forced myself through it, praying that she be also inside.
“The ship was dark inside and crowded with many noisy animals and birds. I looked for my mate frantically. I called her, but the loudness of the animals and birds drowned it. I went to every corner and bar, where most birds perched. I could not find her. But I never stopped searching her. There were pairs of different kinds of ravens, but they didn’t know where my mate might be.
“We heard the rain hitting the ship incessantly. Then we felt our ship float and then role violently. Many vomited. Many long days passed by and gradually the rain became less heavy and the rolling of the ship less violent. One day at last we stopped hearing the rain hitting the roof of the ship, and suddenly felt a shock caused by the ship grounding on hard earth. Noah opened a trap-door, which he had made through the roof of the ship, to inspect outside, and as I was about to shoot through it to escape the ship, he found me and said to me, “Go out and see whether….” But I did not hear him finish his command to me but shot out and flew away. This was the beginning of my toil, a punishment of not observing the command of Noah, a man of god. I frantically flew and sought my mate, searching every piece of dried land. I never returned to the ship where she was not.
“I heard a voice from nowhere again after an endlessly long time, when I had at last been convinced that I could never find my mate, and, remembering from my remote memory about the man Noah, and then his god Allah, I had cried, ‘Allah! Allah! Allah!’ Thus, the voice from nowhere said: ‘O what a long time you have wasted, seeking your love! Now, know that no matter how long you may continue to search her, you shall not find her nor shall you see death, for you have deserted Noah, a servant of Allah. You shall fly eternally without finding joy. But, since you have just sought help from Allah, the Merciful god, you have the last chance to end this eternal toil and meet her, after your sweet death, if only you quit your search now and obey a word of Allah, of whom you are still a servant. So, listen: today, as you fly high, you shall see a white whale swimming below you. Follow it, and you will come to a land and see the whale spit out a man on the land. His name is Yunus, another deserter of Allah. You shall find a hidden ship nearby. Your mission is to see to that he reaches the ship. If you fail, you shall fly and search your love until the Day of Judgement and shall see her nevermore.’
“Oh, Yunus, my brother by virtue of the mercy of Allah, the Almighty, that is all that I can tell you, and you shall know the rest of the story if you continue to follow Him in faith and deed.”
Chapter IX
Yunus waked up and found, to his great surprise, that the ship was sailing on its own, and already he could not see any land in all directions. Thus, the ship with only one passenger (for the raven had gone) who did not know how to pull ropes had left the land and was sailing swiftly, driven by the winds, which kept tensing the sails.
The prophet got concerned about the shortage of food and water. He searched the ship again but there was no food or water stored. Nor was there any tool that might be useful to catch fish.
He then recalled there were many oysters stuck on the lower parts of the ship body; so, when he got very hungry, he lowered the rope ladder and went down to harvest them. But the ship was often sailing at such a high speed and was thus rolling so roughly that it was difficult to steady himself on the swinging ladder and keep himself unharmed by the oysters’ shells. Thus, only when the wind lulled and the ship slowed down, he would try his luck. He would climb down the rope ladder and, selecting a bigger oyster, crack the lid of its shell, pick out the meat, rinse it in the salty sea water and eat it. Till the end of his life, he would never taste anything more delicious than that. But this harvesting was too exhausting to the hungry prophet that it made him scarcely less hungry.
As for the water he could do nothing but wait for the rain. He looked for a rain water reservoir on top of the roofs of the cabin but there were none. So, he decided to make bowls out of two watermelons. He split them in half using an oyster shell and made four bowls that could receive and keep some rain water in them once a shower came.
Yunus thought the ship was in the Mediterranean; so, he hoped some friendly ship would find his sooner or later or he would find a land and send a signal for help. He prayed to Allah, but nothing good happened except that the ship kept sailing even during lull, and he was sure that Allah his merciful god was bringing the ship toward Ninuwa.
Sunny days continued and he did not see any ship or land, so that he had to conclude that he was not in the Mediterranean. Then, he had no knowledge of where he was except that he must be bound for Ninuwa. For several days no rain came and the ship got very hot in the daytime; Yunus moved to and fro to find a place to avoid the heat. In the cabin it was hotter than windy outdoors. So, he would stay in the shadow of the vast white sails, which changed places causing him to chase their shadow. Thus, he kept sweating and when his gourds ran out of water and the juicy fruits he had taken from the plantation were no more, he started dehydrating. Thirst became the most serious problem. He could only hope for a rainfall.
One mid-day, it was sunny but he could see thick clouds ahead and the sea was dark there. So, he thought a shower was coming. He went out of the shadow of the sails to place the watermelon bowls at a part of the ship far enough from the sails so as to allow them to capture as much rain as possible when it rained; but the wooden boards were so heated by the sun that his bare feet were scorched and he started dancing on them. He barely came back into the shade before his soles of the feet were burnt. He thought this heat would damage the watermelon bowls immediately, and thus decided that he would place them outside only during the nighttime.
When a man gets dehydrated, he starts seeing things which are not real, and Yunus had begun to experience this. So, one day when Yunus, half asleep late that afternoon, saw a huge funnel-like thing hanging from the sky far away, he thought he was only seeing another unreal thing. But it was going to be a real ocean tornado. The lower narrow end of the funnel extended and dipped in the sea and thus connected the sea to the heaven, and Yunus thought he was seeing an illusion of Jacob’s ladder. The giant tornado was approaching; but he did not move. He was fainting with thirst and hunger so that he was unable to come out of the dreaminess.
As the tornado came closer, the sun was hidden by it and its sound became threatening. Soon strong winds attacked the ship and the sails began vibrating. The ship was caught in the tornado and her body was twirled several times. Failing to lift up the ship, the tornado shaft was snapped as if it were a rope trying to raise the ship without success; and it receded into heaven together with the winds.
Everything on the deck was blown away overboard; he was only lucky he had kept the watermelon bowls inside the cabin. Torrents of water began to fall heavily from the sky and it brought down many fish and other sea animals. A fall of a small half-frozen jellyfish upon his face at last roused Yunus to his consciousness.
He ran into the cabin to escape further damage. He was drenched with the cold rain and was shivering.
He held a watermelon bowl outside to catch some rain water. It however tasted briny and he spat out and coughed. But many fish and sea-animals landing on the board was encouraging. He remembered hearing a sailor say that the eyeball of fish contained water and that eyeball was in fact the most delicious part of fish too.
Normally he would be afraid of eating fish raw, but hunger made him barbaric and he picked up a small fish that had fallen near the cabin and ate it bone and all as if it were a sugarcane. He found seaweeds flowing on the flooded deck and caught some and swallowed it too; it was too salty but hunger was the greatest appetizer.
This saltiness however made him even thirstier. He needed water real bad. He must try a big fish’s big eyeballs now. But the falling of sea animals ceased before he could get a big fish, and it was followed by shooting of hail stones hitting the ship board like many pebbles. They were dangerous too; so, Yunus only placed the four watermelon bowls outside the cabin, hoping to collect some water from the hailstones.
Wet and shivering, Yunus now longed for the sun, which he had until some time ago detested for its scorching heat.
After what seemed about two hours, the hailstorm was let up and sunshine came back with a clear rainbow. Heat came back too and Yunus moved into the shadow of sails again. He knew there were parts of the quarter-deck where the wooden board was covered with brass-plates, and on one of them which were exposed to the sun, he put the big eye balls, which he had gouged out from several big fish. In a minute the eye balls started singeing where they were in touch with the plate. An appetizing smell carried by the smoke spread, and Yunus turned the balls over and waited another minute to finish the cooking. Then he picked one of them and sucked its hot juice; it tasted sweet to his tongue. Then he spat out the tiny spherical lens, and likewise he finished the other eyes. After this, he cooked and ate the meat of those fish from which he had tasted the eye water. He had never eaten fish as delicious as they were.
The fish on the deck started drying in the sun, and the prophet gathered and put all the other fish that were not in the sun in it. This way he could preserve them all without rotting, and he thought the amount of them would be enough for him to survive a month or more. He thanked Allah for the fertile day.
Having eaten and drunk his fill, he got sleepy and rested in the shadow of the flying sails. But no sooner had he fallen asleep than he was waked by a loud noise. Quite a few sea-birds were hovering over the ship and their crying, especially the sea-gulls’, had waked the prophet. While he was wondering what the fuss was, they descended upon the board to eat the fish of their choice. An enormous albatross among them was swallowing fish one after another. Yunus shouted and rushed to it to scare it away from the ship but it only hopped away with the game in its beak and did not even fly. Meanwhile the number of the birds increased and he began picking up the fish to secure as many as possible. When he had managed to throw no more than half a dozen of relatively large fishes into the cabin, the fish buffet was exhausted of the supply. Then, the birds began to leave the ship well satiated. From the small amount of the fish he had been able to retain, he thought he would soon starve again, for he knew the falling of fish from heaven was a very rare, next-to-impossible phenomenon. He was right; he would never experience it during the rest of his life. But shower came occasionally to provide water to him during this voyage.
In several days he ran out of the fish, and began to starve again. He cracked fish bones, which he had been chewing and sucking to the marrow, into small pieces and ate them after drying them in the sun.
Then in one afternoon, he waked up from a nap to find a land afar. In the direction in which the ship was heading he saw a profile of a vast low land. He could barely see a tiny gap in the land profile and his ship seemed to be heading toward the gap. By and by Yunus saw the gap was a strait, and high cliffs were on either side of it.
Several boats and dinghies with sails came out of the shadow of the cliff on the right side of the gap, and seemed aiming for Yunus’ ship. He thought they were fishermen, and signaled for help. But then a big ship suddenly shot out behind the cliff, and he could see from her flag of a skull and bones that they were pirates. Yunus prayed and asked Allah to turn the ship around and away from them. But the godly ship continued to sail toward them. At last, the boats and dinghies got to the godly ship and the crew threw ropes with multiple grappling hooks at their ends into the ship and began climbing its side. Yunus tried to unhook one of the ropes but, being weighted by the climber, the hook was too firmly engaged for him to undo.
Soon the pirates got on board one after another and bound Yunus hand and foot. They asked him where the other crews were. But Yunus said he was the only one on the ship. They threatened to throw him into the ocean if he was lying. He could only repeat what he had said. Then, they searched through the ship and, finding nobody else, asked Yunus what had happened to the other crew. He could only say that he did not know about that for the ship had been deserted when he found her on a beach of a faraway land. Nor could he tell, in response to their questions, the name of that land and where he was going, for the godly ship had sailed on its own initiative.
The pirates’ mother ship arrived, and the captain and his mates got on board the ship by jumping from their ship. The captain was surprised to know that only a single person, who was not even a sailor, had been sailing the ship in the vast ocean. Yunus explained to him and his men how he had gotten to a beach of the unknown land carried in a white whale and from there how the godly ship brought him to this side of the ocean. The captain and the others scarcely believed him, except that his fishy smell was too strong to doubt that he really could have been in some sort of a big fish at least for a while. The captain found the godly ship very fine and thought it would make an excellent pirate ship after some carpentry.
Then, the captain and other pirates together with Yunus moved to the pirates’ mother ship or respective boats and dinghies, leaving a couple of them on the godly ship; and the two ships were tied together so that the pirate ship could tug the captured ship to their harbor.
However, no matter how hard the men in the pirate ship rowed, and although the wind was favorable for them, they seemed not making progress landward. On the contrary, it seemed as if the godly ship was pulling the pirate ship backward, toward the vast arched ocean horizon. The captain first thought it was because of the current going in that direction, and wondered if he had made a fatal mistake of coming too far into the ocean. For the people in the area those days believed that the earth and the ocean were on a huge round table, the periphery of which was the ocean horizon, and that the sea water was continually falling down over the horizon onto an underground ocean, so that once a ship got too close to the horizon, it would be pulled by the flow of the falling water and could not escape the fall. Thus, the captain thought the two ships were now being pulled toward the grand cataract. But, when he went to the bow of the ship, he found that the boats and dinghies were not being pulled in the same direction but were returning toward the land swiftly, which meant that it was not the current that was moving the two ships backward. Thus, he now came to be convinced that the captured ship was actually pulling his ship backward overpowering the drive created by the rowing of his men. It was a situation of tug of war and his team was losing one-sidedly. At this the captain began to suspect that the captured ship was actually a godly one and had an ability to sail on its own initiative, as Yunus had said.
Gradually the speed of the backward motion increased and the pirate ship began to toss up and down dangerously - as a cart-horse does when the cart is pulled backward - while the godly vessel maintained its steady posture. This frightened the pirates and they started praying to Poseidon their god for help and protection.
At the same time, Yunus began preaching Allah the Almighty to them, and said that Allah was working this on purpose. He said, “Allah is the supreme god, superior to any other god, superior even to Poseidon! He created the ocean as well as the heaven and the earth, and thus can control them at his will.” The pirates suspended their prayer to hear Yunus, who continued, “My friends, do not resist Allah the Most High lest you be destroyed with this ship!”
Hearing this and having been frightened by the rough tossing of his ship, the captain could not help but decide to let go the godly ship. But owing to the rough motion of his ship, nobody could walk to the stern of the ship, at which the rope connecting the two ships was tied on this side. He climbed the bow-post of the ship and untied a rope from a peg there. The other end of the rope was tied to the highest sail boom. Then he held it with his clasped hands and flew swiftly through the air to the stern of the arched ship, shouting to the ones in his way “Duck your heads!” He landed near the stern and shouted to his mates on the godly ship, “Jump off! Off the deadly ship! or you’ll be brought to the grand cataract and perish!” Immediately he drew his saber and with it began cutting the tightened rope to let go the godly ship, from which his men started jumping into the sea. When the rope was at last severed, behold, the godly ship turned around, sailed swiftly away, and sank into the sun-setting horizon, while the released pirate’s ship began sailing steadily landward.
The captain ordered his men to untie the ropes that bound Yunus’ hands and feet, and ordered the cook to serve him a meal for he did not seem to be able to keep standing due to hunger.
Now, the pirates came to realize from the result of the tug of war that the god of Yunus was far more powerful than their god Poseidon, and thus they got disillusioned with the latter. They asked Yunus to preach them more about his god Allah, which the prophet did promptly, and, when they were convinced of the almightiness of Allah, they asked him to be their priest and be the pleader to the almighty god for their successful piratic actions. To this Yunus said that pirating was a sin and Allah would never help sinners be happy, so that, if they wanted to be His worshippers, they would have to repent and abandon pirating.
Most of the pirates did not disagree with him at heart for they had long been wishing to quit the job anyhow; but they could not do so, because the priests of their god Poseidon demanded such heavy offering to be made to the god that could only be earned through the practice of piracy at the strait, near which their residential island was. In accordance with an oracle of Poseidon, according to the priests of his, the islanders as a whole must offer to the statue of Poseidon every other day twelve bushels of fine flour, thirty sheep and forty gallons of wine, or the equivalents to them, most of which were procured at a port town of Tarshish, across the strait from their island, in exchange for the booty gained through their piracy. The islanders were made by the priests to believe that Poseidon was the protector of pirates and piracy was a form of holy war against pagans. For this, in the island, piracy was considered the most honorable occupation second only to priesthood.
The fact was, however, that most of the pirates, except a handful including the captain, were themselves victims of piracy, kidnapped when they were infants by the pirates, who killed or sold away their parents and raised them to become skilled pirates or shipwrights or fishermen. As these young ones grew up, the original senior pirates themselves had by and by quitted the dangerous occupation and left it to the junior pirates, and those former pirates established priesthood of Poseidon and became priests to exploit the pirates and other islanders.
Hence in the island the priests and their family members occupied the hill top area enclosed by thick walls built of cut stones, extending all around except for the back side where a high precipitous cliff fell into the ocean. The edge of this cliff was the highest part of the island, and from there one could see through the strait and the opposite lands including Tarshish. Hence a watchman was always stationed there, who at night would keep the signal fire burning until their pirate ship returned home. Furthermore, there were two catapults stationed there unseen from the sea to shoot large stones when a ship came within the shooting range. About the middle of the enclosure, there was a large lake, half of which was a swamp full of beautiful lotus plant, providing the inhabitants with water as well as lotus fruit. The shrine of Poseidon was built between the lake and the cliff, and an old white stone statue of Poseidon sheltered in this shrine looked down the hill and watched over the vast ocean. This statue of Poseidon, who is a god of freshwater and the sea, held his trident in his left hand and this weapon was a real one. But no one knew who had erected the statue there or who had dedicated the trident to the god, except that a legend told that a one-eyed giant came to the island and put them there. The worshippers would approach the deity by climbing a long flight of stone steps from the lakeside.
Most of the islanders such as pirates and shipwrights lived outside the enclosure and mostly in the vicinities of the port. They could view the statue from almost every part of the island, and they worshiped the god every day.
The pirates were divided into two groups, those who were married to daughters of the priests and those who were not. The former were the elite pirates and worked on the mother ship and the latter were assigned to respective boats and dinghies.
Besides the pirates there were slaves that were put at the oars in the mother ship or stationed in the boats or dinghies. They were mostly the original inhabitants of the island. These aborigines had had no king nor organization beyond families; they loved loving each other and scarcely competed with each other. So, they never would fight. They had led a carefree life as farmers, if anything. They were also all vegetarians, not because of a religion, of which they had none. They used to welcome any stranger to the island with food and drinks. Then, the pirates took over the island from them. When, decades ago, a merchant ship arrived at the island seeking protection from a pirate ship in pursuit of them, the islanders provided them with food and drinks but no protection, for they would not fight. When the pirates arrived, most of the pursued fought back against them, but were all killed. Those who did not resist were made their slaves. The islanders too were made slaves, then. The pirates found the island smaller but better than the peninsula in which they had inhabited, because this island was closer to the strait and safer from invasion. Thus, they made the island their new home and brought their families there. For the statue of Poseidon, which had already been standing there, the pirates built a shrine to shelter it. Meanwhile, the slaves were used to build up the walls to isolate the hilltop area as a fortress.
Now, back to the story of Yunus, having failed to capture the godly ship, the pirates had not gained any booty to sell that day except for the foul-smelling prophet, whom they now revered and would not think of selling. The captain told his fellows on the mother ship to give up some of their jewels, coins or medicine to make up for the shortage of offerings due that day. (These items of plunder had been given to the pirates on the mother ship as bonus after each successful attack, and they would spend most of them on wine, women and gambling overnight at Tarshish, which was across the strait from their home island.) Most of the pirates on the ship were of course not happy but gave up some from their possession.
Whether this helped it or not, it came to pass that, as the ship approached the port of Tarshish, a mutiny took place in the mother ship and as the result the captain and several others were bound hand and foot. The ringleader of the mutiny was a young pirate who was inspired and encouraged by the preaching of Yunus, when the prophet said, “Allah is the one and only god and with Him all things are possible.” This ringleader, who had known certain friends of his would join him for they had discussed recently the possibility of rising in a treason against the captain and his friends, shouted with his sword raised, “I declare a holy treason, and fight in the name of Allah, the one and only god, greater than Poseidon!” And many young pirates, far more than he had expected, who had also been inspired similarly by Allah, joined the young ringleader in the fight promptly. The fight was brief, for the captain shouted immediately, “I surrender and will be a servant of Allah, the one and only god, who is greater than Poseidon!” and surrendered his saber; thereupon all his friends joined him in the surrender and surrendered their weapons. No one was injured.
Thus, the pirates including those on the boats and dinghies were instantly converted to worshippers of Allah, thus promising to stop being pirates of Poseidon. The ringleader of the treason ordered that the ship should stay at anchor by the port of Tarshish to pass the night, and then head for their home island early next morning to overturn the priesthood reign.
When they reached the harbor of their island before dawn the next morning, led by the signal fire of the island, the traitors unbound the captain and his friends, who had convinced them that they too believed in Allah and would follow the commands of the ringleader. The latter allowed the freed elite pirates to go to the shrine of Poseidon on the hill top, which they had customarily done to report the booty to the god and the priests. The plan was that the rest of the pirates would follow them in some distance so that when the gate was opened and the freed elite pirates had passed the gate, all the pirates would rush in the enclosure and start a revolution to overturn the supremacy of the priests.
The sun had risen clearly by the time the pirates reached the gate of walls of the enclosure. Now, as soon as the captain and his friends entered the gate of the hill-top enclosure, one of the captain’s friends, who was the husband of a daughter of the chief priest, shouted as he ran away from his friends, “Treason! Everyone, get weapons and keep the traitors off the gate!” Then the captain shouted, “We declare a holy revolution in the name of Allah, the one and only god, greater than Poseidon!” and fighting began. Some other pirates could enter the walled enclosure but many were shut out, as the gate keepers hurriedly closed and locked the gates and guarded their positions. Yunus barely had gotten inside the enclosure and was protected by the revolutionaries.
Being themselves once pirates and outnumbering the revolting pirates inside the enclosure, the priests and their family members gradually gained the upper hand in the fight and pressed the revolutionaries toward the lakeside. Fortunately for the latter, the lake was swamp on this side, so that the pirates and Yunus jumped into the lake and waded through the reedy shallow water. There were many female slaves harvesting lotus fruit from boats in the swamp. They saw the pirates rushing toward them, shouting “Give us the boats!” So, the women hastily gave up their boats and escaped wading toward the nearest shore. The pirates used the boats to cross the swampy part and then the deep part of the lake and reached the opposite shore in the vicinities of the flight of the stone steps, which lead up to the shrine of Poseidon. The priests in pursuit of them had also entered the swamp but could not gain any boat. So, they went back ashore and ran along the lakeside to reach the other side of the lake. Meanwhile, the revolutionaries ran up the steps, and Yunus, arriving at the shrine first, snatched the trident from the statue of Poseidon, breaking the closed fingers of curved stone. The ringleader and other revolutionaries tipped over the statue and placed it across the flight of the stone steps so as to stop the priest warriors from running up. One after another, the priests arrived at the foot of the flight of the stone steps. The pirates threw stones at them, and prevented them from running up the steep flight. Some priests had bows and shot arrows to the pirates and an arrow hit Yunus’ left arm, from which the trident fell. The pirates brought him inside the shrine and pulled off the arrow. Yunus’ left arm dripped with blood but he did not lose consciousness for the arrow head was not poisoned. A pirate tied a cloth round his arm to stop the blood. Meanwhile the priests bypassed the statue and approached the shrine. Some even reached the catapults and were turning them to target the revolts.
By now all the islanders were informed of the fight taking place inside the walls and they all witnessed what had happened to the statue of Poseidon. Some groaned and others felt relieved. Some said one thing and others another.
Then, the ringleader of the treason came out from the shrine and called out, “Listen! and hear me out for I will speak about the truths!”
The priests and their cohorts stopped, because they were surprised at finding that this young man whom they had considered a lesser one among the pirates came out to speak and not the captain of the pirates. The young one said, “I started the treason in the ship in the name of an almighty god Allah. I did it because I am fed up with piracy. My parents were killed by you when you were pirates and I myself have killed some in the likewise manner. I myself have trained some of the children whom I had orphaned to be pirates to kill other children’s parents. Is this really a holy occupation? Is it really honorable to kill the innocent ones? Is it not savagery? I am fed up with killing and creating killers. So, no more piracy in the name of Poseidon or any other god! Today I and all of you just saw the statue of Poseidon fall down. You all saw, when that man Yunus, who is a prophet of the god he calls Allah, took away the weapon from him, Poseidon could not even keep the weapon, but his fingers were broken. Now, we never heard of the god Allah, but today we heard from this man Yunus that this god Allah condemns piracy as a sin, not a holy occupation, unlike what Poseidon says. And yesterday at midday we witnessed that Allah the god of Yunus also overpowered Poseidon the god of the sea in the sea itself! We prayed for help to Poseidon against Allah’s chastisement upon us, but Poseidon could not stop Allah.” Then, he went on to detail what had happened at the sea on the previous day. During this, no one said it was a lie, not even the one who had run away from the pirates to warn the priests against the revolution.
At length, seeing that the young man proved more skilled in speech than he had anticipated, the chief priest, who was an old man and was wearing a beautiful white fur cap and coat, demanded the traitors to surrender, and promised that they would not be punished if they threw the heads of Yunus and this novice over to them, or else they would all be driven up to the cliff and flung down to the rocky strand. There was silence for a while. Then, shouts arose from the women that had gathered and were watching by the lakeside, crying “No more killing! No more killing!” They were the wives or sisters or daughters of the revolting pirates. Even some priests and some of their cohorts joined the call, especially those related to one or more of the revolutionaries.
Still more, the talk of the young man had touched the hearts of all the audience more or less, and thus most of the inhabitants were beginning to convert toward Allah in their hearts. So, they started shouting they should not kill the two men or none of the pirates. Thus, a majority of the priests revolted against the unconverted priests. Being suddenly outnumbered, the latter lost heart and threw the weapons away, each shouting “I give up! I give up!” They even said they would worship Allah too.
The ringleader ordered the final surrenderers, who were more aged than the others, to carry the statue of Poseidon up to the cliff top and drop it in the sea to show that they really had converted. They obeyed. But the statue was so heavy and the slope so steep that they slipped and dropped it, and it slid down the slope injuring some men on its way and fell into the lake. It was seen to lie on a patch of sand in the depth with its threatening face upward. The people were struck in awe at what happened, and the statue was left alone in the water of the lake.
As a result of Yunus’ intervention, no one was punished and a peace agreement was made between the pirates and the priests. It was decided to abandon piracy, and take up commerce as their new occupation on the sea. All the priests converted, of their own accord, to be priests of Allah, for in fact they had never cared much about Poseidon – the doctrine of Poseidon’s being the protector god for pirates being their own invention. However, they feared that there were too many priests to support by newly adopted seafaring trade, so that many young or otherwise skilled ones were ordered to quit priesthood and choose from other occupations such as sailor, shipwright, farmer or fisherman.
The chief priest, who had been the captain of the pirates when they seized the island, chose to return to the ship and was assigned to be the navigator, for he was the most knowledgeable person at the geography of the Mediterranean Sea and the lands on it.
The shipwrights, in accordance with the peace agreement, refurbished the arched pirate ship into a merchant ship, expanding the space for cargos, and the islanders gave it a new name, Allah’s Ark. (The boats and dinghies were refurnished too and some were used for fishery and others as ferry boats to cross the strait.) The young ringleader of the treason was chosen to be the new captain of the trade ship and the former captain remained a sailor too and was assigned to be the mate, the officer second in command to the captain.
Now, the aborigines of this island had been outside the recent treason or the revolution, for they would never fight. But, pursuant to the suggestion of Yunus, they were all freed from the slavery and allowed to live according to their old traditions, which had been banned since the pirates subdued them. So, they all returned to be farmers and resumed taking care of the plants in fields and swamps as before, and also all of them reverted to pure nudity, which was not uncommon among more temperate areas of Mediterranean cultures those days.
Yunus was asked to be the chief priest by the islanders. He responded to them that, although he felt honored, he could not accept it, for he was on his way to a city called Ninuwa where he had to complete a mission commanded by Allah. The islanders did not know where Ninuwa was; but when Yunus said that to get there he had to reach a port called Joppa in the eastern end of the Mediterranean Sea, the new navigator said he knew it, and that he could navigate the ship there in less than a month. Thus, the islanders proposed to offer Yunus a voyage there as soon as they had gathered enough merchandise such as lotus fruit and other indigenous products of the island and nearby lands.
Accordingly, a few days later, the merchant ship was ready for her first voyage and left the island. Yunus was provided with a separate cabin, but he chose to be with others in a big passenger room below.
The first stop of Allah’s Ark was Tarshish, where they procured beaten silver plates and cork lumber as the principal cargos and took some passengers. (Cork trees were planted in the nearby lands, and the cork was used to make ship’s cushioning and life buoy. The sailors would carve the soft wood from the trees into those products during the voyage.) They also purchased male slaves who had seafaring experience. The slaves were to be set at liberty after they worked in the ship until she reached Joppa; then they would be employed as paid laborers to do cargo handling and oar rowing, if they chose to stay. They also purchased a couple of ferrets, male and female, to restrict the increase of the rats in the ship.
Now, on the third day at Tarshish, when all the tasks to be done there had been completed, the wind turned round and prevented the ship from sailing eastward (toward Joppa). Furthermore, the captain fell ill and could not rise. He had high fever and had lost appetite for any food. Physicians of Tarshish came and saw him but none could heal him, nor was there a medicine that worked for him.
Then, on the eighth morning at Tarshish, the captain waked up early and called the mate sleeping in the next cabin. The mate came in the captain’s cabin and was shocked to find that his hair had turned white overnight. The captain, lying on his bed, ordered that the ship should return to the island as soon as possible. He said he had to go to the lake. The ex-captain wondered if the captain had lost his mind, but he quickly obeyed without asking a question. Accordingly, the ship left Tarshish that morning and crossed the strait. By the time the ship reached her home port, the captain had regained enough power to go out of the bed and was walking about to prepare the landing.
When the ship reached the port, many islanders had gathered there, wondering what brought the ship back. As the captain went ashore with the help of his close friends, he was holding the trident, which had been taken away from the statue of Poseidon by Yunus, and had been placed in the captain’s cabin as a wall ornament.
He carried the heavy trident on his shoulders like a yoke. His wife came to meet him with their baby in her arms. But she could not locate him for he had significantly changed in appearance, though he was standing nearby. The captain noticed his wife and his baby, and stretched out his left arm toward the little boy, saying “My son, have you come all the way to see your Dad?” At this, the baby quickly shrank back into the bosom of his mother, crying like a siren, for he was terrified at the sight of the white-haired pale man carrying a dreadful weapon on his shoulders.
The captain was offered to ride on an ass, but he refused and went up toward the hill on foot, along with his friends, resting frequently. The islanders as well as the sailors left in the ship watched the slow procession go up the slopes of the hill. When they reached the lakeside, they disappeared from the view. Then, after half an hour, the statue of Poseidon showed up as if it was rising on its own, and then men carrying it appeared all dripping with water. The white statue was brought up the stone stairway and stood back in the shrine. The captain put the trident to lean against the statue’s left arm, and then cemented with japan the broken-off fingers back to the hand, which thus grabbed the weapon again.
Meanwhile, some animals were brought up the stairway, slaughtered, and offered as burnt offerings to the statue. The captain fell on his knees and bowed to the deity. The smoke rose and the soothing smell spread and even reached the ship. The islanders were bewildered by the captain’s conduct, and the awesome statue of Poseidon looked down at them again.
Then, the captain’s friends returned to the ship with a letter from him, which read: “Dear my friends, I desire to resign as the captain of Allah’s Ark, and remain in the island to appease the anger of Poseidon. I shall remain a servant of Allah all my life, but in this one matter only, may the Almighty Allah pardon me, for I am doomed to pacify this sea deity all my life through my misfortune. As for the trident, we must return it to the deity or his anger shall increase and harm whoever possesses it.”
Yunus did not disagree with the captain. A return message was promptly sent back to the captain to the effect that all that he wrote was well and accepted.
All members on board the ship agreed that the mate, the former captain, should be reinstated into his previous position.
Now, assisted by fair winds, which began on that afternoon, whether or not in consequence of the afore-narrated proceeding, the merchant ship again sailed off the island and commenced her voyage bound for Joppa. Yunus prayed to Allah for a safe voyage and good health of the people on board. The ship sailed swiftly.
The ship stopped at various ports, where she picked up passengers and some extra cargos. It took about half a month for the ship to reach Joppa. However, during the voyage all of the passengers got fascinated by Yunus’s stories of his adventures so much that none left Allah’s Ark until the ship reached her destination Joppa, although many of them were supposed to have left her at respective ports before Joppa. This phenomenon continued even after Yunus left the ship at Joppa, for his talk was viral. The passengers who had stayed beyond their destinations took the same ship again at Joppa to double back the course, and they, as well as the crew, told the new passengers the stories they had heard from Yunus, before eventually leaving the ship at their respective destinations - except some who again lingered on Allah’s Ark till she reached her home island. But all of the passengers were happy and praised Allah and his prophet Yunus wherever they landed - although some were dragged to leave the ship by their relatives or business partners.
Thus, the stories of Yunus were orally handed down variously among the peoples at sea and on shore, and a few versions of them survived ages until they were eventually fixed on plates. Incidentally, the crew of Allah’s Ark came to be suspected by people on land that they were serving narcotic lotus fruits to the passengers to cause them to forget about anything that mattered in life, such as going ashore at their destination ports, and that they were preaching a religion to seduce the passengers to become followers of a certain unseen god.
Continues to Chapter VII
