Verily Jonah [Yoonus] was one of the apostles. [Remember] when he fled unto the laden ship, _being angry with his people, because the punishment wherewith he had threatened them did not fall upon them; wherefore he embarked in the ship; and it became stationary in the midst of the sea: so the sailors said, Here is a slave who hath fled from his master, and the lot will discover him_:—and he cast lots _with those who were in the ship_, and he was [the] one upon whom the lot fell. _They therefore cast him into the sea_, and the fish swallowed him; and he was reprehensible, _for having gone to the sea, and embarked in the ship, without the permission of his Lord_. And had he not been of those who glorified God (_by his saying often in the belly of the fish, There is no god but Thou! I extol Thy perfection! Verily I have been of the offenders!_), he had remained in his belly until the day of resurrection.[322] And We cast him on the plain land, _the same day, or after three or seven days, or twenty or forty days_; and he was sick; and We caused a gourd plant[323] to grow up over him, _to shade him_. _It had a trunk, contrary to what is the case of gourds in general, being miraculously produced for him._[324] _And a wild she-goat came to him evening and morning, of whose milk he drank until he became strong._ And We sent him _after that, as before_, unto _his people in Nineveh, in the land of El-Moṣil_, a hundred thousand, or they were a greater number by _twenty or thirty or seventy thousand_; and they believed _on beholding the punishment wherewith they had been threatened_;[325] wherefore We allowed them enjoyment _of their goods_ for a time, _until the expiration of their terms of life_. (xxxvii. 139-148.) _EZRA._