The Islamic Whale

The Islamic whale (in Arabic الحوت الإسلامية, al-hoot al-islamiyya), is a big whale described in prominent Islamic texts, that supposedly carries the Earth on its back. It is also called Nun (نون), which is also the name of the Arabic letter ن. Two alternative names of the whale are Liwash and Lutiaya.^[1] This article analyzes the sources of this Islamic whale hypothesis.

Nun in the Qur'an

Nun is mentioned in the verse 68:1. The most respected scholars of Islam (Ibn Kathir, At-Tabari, Al-Qurtubi and others) agree that Nun refers to a whale that carries the Earth on its back:

Word-by-word translation:

• نٓ - noon - the name of the whale
• وَٱلْقَلَمِ - wal-qalam - by the pen (wa- prefix means "and" or "by")
• وَمَا - wa-ma - and what
• يَسْطُرُونَ - yasturoona - they write

There is not much information in the Qur'an, but as we'll see, it is necessary to understand the existence of the Islamic whale for understanding other verses of the Qur'an. For example, about mountains being like pegs:

There is also a verse where Jonah is called "man of the Nun", because he was eaten by a whale^[2]:

Nun refers to a whale (الحوت, al-hoot), according to Al-Jalalayn.^[3]

Tafsir Ibn Kathir

First, we will quote the whole commentary on the verse 68:1 from the English abridged version of the tafsir Ibn Kathir:

There is nothing, because the translators decided not to translate what he wrote about this verse, although in the Arabic original, Ibn Kathir writes a lot about it.

This is the definition of ن (Nun) in the Arabic tafsir:

Hadith from Ibn Abbas, the turjuman ul-Qur'an

The Tafsir Ibn Kathir quotes At-Tabari, who quotes Ibn Abbas, who gave us some details about how the whale was created:

Another variation of this hadith:

The hadith (narration) by Ibn Abbas (collected by At-Tabari) is considered صحيح (sahih)^[6], which means authentic narration. All Muslims should believe in sahih hadiths. And they should especially believe in hadiths where Ibn Abbas explains Qur'anic verses, because Muhammad made du'a for Ibn Abbas, so that Allah teaches him the interpretation of the Qur'an. Ibn Abbas was also called turjuman ul-Qur'an (ترجمان القرآن), because he had deep knowledge about the interpretation (tarjama) of the revelations.

His narration also explains why mountains are described as pegs in the Qur'an. It is because the earth would move on the back of the whale without the pegs that hold it^[7]:

It also explains why Allah's throne is "on water" (because Allah created the heavens out of water):

Tafsir At-Tabari

The most respected Sunni tafsir is probably that of At-Tabari. Unfortunately, it is not translated into English yet. Here is just his interpretation of the Nun in the verse 68:1.

In Islam there are seven flat Earths, just like there are seven heavens:

They are placed on the whale like pancakes.

ِTafsir Al-Qurtubi

Another very respected tafsir of Al-Qurtubi is of the same opinion. The whale is under the 7th (lowest) Earth:

ِTafsir Al-Kabir (by Ar-Razi)

Again, we see that there are multiple flat Earths, under them is the whale and under the whale is the sea (ocean). The whale swims in the sea with the Earths attached to its back.

ِTafsir Fath Al-Qadir (by Shawkani)

This tafsir is from the 18th century:

Hadith Al-Kafi (shia)

We can also read about the Islamic whale from the Shia hadiths. This narration explains the connection between the whale and earthquakes:

Tafsir Al-Tusi (shia)

The first comprehensive Shia tafsir^[13] says this about the Nun:

As we see, Ibn Abbas and his narration is deeply respected by both sunni and shia Muslims.

Evidence

There is no scientific evidence suggesting that there is a big whale carrying the Earth on its back. We know today because of overwhelming evidence that the earth is round, or specifically oblate spheroid (there are no seven flat earths stacked one below the other). We also know that the earth is floating in space and is held in its orbit because of the gravitational force of the sun. There are no gigantic animals holding the earth as the tafsirs and hadith claim.

Also, mountains are not like pegs. For example volcanic mountains could be considered the opposite of pegs, because they have a flowing lava in the middle. The flowing lava with its high temperature cannot attach the Earth to a big whale.

Other interpretations of Nun

Although the turjuman ul-Qur'an Ibn Abbas explained that Nun is the whale which carries the Earth(s) on its back, there are also non-whale interpretations of Nun.

"ن is a letter of the alphabet"

ن ("n") is a letter of the Arabic alphabet called نون (Nun).

• This doesn't explain the verse at all. If anything, it would mean that Allah puts random letters into his revelation for mankind, for no reason.
• Muhammad was illiterate and he did not write the revelations. He recited them. "Qur'an" means recitation. Maybe it was not just the letter ن ("n"), but the whole name نون ("nun"). It's just a matter of writing it. So maybe it was not meant to be a letter of the alphabet at all. Maybe it was the three-letter word N-u-n.
• The verse 68:1 "نٓ وَٱلْقَلَمِ وَمَا يَسْطُرُونَ" could be translated as "Nun and the pen and what they write", since و usually means "and". It seems that Allah is enumerating 3 things (and enumeration usually donesn't mix things and letters):
  • Nun (ن or نون)
  • and (و) the pen (ٱلْقَلَمِ)
  • and (و) what (مَا)
  • they write (يَسْطُرُونَ)

"N" in "Ar-Rahmaan"

The word الرحمن, Ar-Rahman, "the gracious" is one of the names of Allah. The 13th sura starts with three letters الر, a few suras start with the letters حم. It we put together الر + حم + ن, we get الرحمن.

• The word Ar-Rahman is nowadays actually written as الرحمان, but in the old Uthmani script it was written without the ا (alif) before the ن. It was added later, to indicate the "aa" vowel.
• A lot of verses start on other letters and putting them together doesn't produce any interesting word. So choosing just three of them and getting an interesting word could be considered a cherry-picking.

Nun means "ink"

The verse 68:1 would mean "The ink and the pen and that which they write".

• The Qur'an used the word مِدَادًا (midaadan) for "ink" in the verse 18:109, while it used the word نون (nun) to mean "whale" in the verse 21:87. So it is more probable, that the meaning of nun here is "whale".
• According to this interpretation, this refers to the ink with which the Qur'an was written. Which is not very fitting, since the primary form of the Qu'ran is recitation. The word "Qur'an" itself means "recitation".

"Allah knows best"

"Allah knows best", in other words "the author knows what he meant", is not an interpretation at all. "Allah knows best" could be said about all Qur'anic verses. In fact, there could be a whole tafsir saying only "Allah knows best" to every verse. But it would be useless, because "Allah knows best" doesn't explain the meaning at all.

Apologetics

Some Muslims, who consider the whale hypothesis to be false ^[15] are embarrassed that this is a part of their religion and try to put forward arguments to prove that it is in fact not a part of their religion.

It's not in the Qur'an

This is questionable. Nun is mentioned in the Qur'an 68:1 and it was used in another verse 21:87 to mean "whale". It is not clearly stated in the Qur'an that Nun is the whale which carries the Earth on its back, but the Qur'an speaks about mountains being like pegs, which supports the "whale cosmology". If there is no whale under the Earth, then there is no reason for mountains to function as pegs.

Also when something is not in the Qur'an, then it doesn't mean it's not a part of Islam. The "5 pillars of Islam" are also not described in the Qur'an and they are considered to be a part of Islam. Islam (or at least the mainstream Islam) is derived from the Qur'an, hadith and sira.

The hadith is mawqoof

When a hadith (narration) is called mawqoof, it means that it is not a quote originally from Muhammad himself, but it is from someone from the Sahaba (his companions). In this case Ibn Abbas.

There is a fatwa which says that a mawqoof hadith can be used as evidence if nobody protested against it:

The whale interpretation spread widely among the scholars and none of them discredited this story in any way.

Only the early scholars believed it

As we've seen, the scholar Shawkani, who was born more than a thousand years after Muhammad's death, still wrote about the whale. So it's not just a matter of the early scholars.

• About a century later after Shawkani wrote about the flat Earth on the back of a giant whale, non-Muslims from Russia managed to escape the round Earth and land on the Moon.

It's from the Jews

Neither the Torah nor the Talmud talk about a whale, which carries the earth on its back. So this idea is not derived from Judaism. It was also said that Ibn Abbas probably learned it from Ka‘b al-Ahbar, who was an ex-Jew Muslim. A respected sunni scholar Ibn Hajar said this about Ka‘b al-Ahbar:

So "It's probably from al-Ahbar" is just an unsuccessful ad-hominem.

Scholars can be wrong

Everyone can be wrong. For example Muhammad could have been wrong when he assumed he is a prophet and Muslims can be wrong by believing in Islam. Since everyone can be wrong and this argument could be used against both sides, it is not a valid argument for any side.

This is also an act of shooting the messenger, an ad hominem fallacy. Muslims have traditionally regarded Islamic scholars as expert authorities on all religious matters. In fact, Islam split into many schools of law (madhhabs) over the centuries because each school considered specific scholars as the sole authorities. If Muslims now want to discredit their own scholars because of such embarrassing claims, they are putting the entire Islamic argument—that Islam is the only true religion, it is perfect and it is from God—on shaky ground. One may wonder, "What is the real history of Islam and what are the correct Islamic laws if the scholars are dismissed by their own followers? Were they all liars or fabricators? And why?"

Allah is never wrong

This doesn't mean that he didn't mean the whale which carries the Earth on its back. Maybe the Earth actually is attached to a big whale's back with mountains and all evidence against it is the work of Shaytan who tries to lead people to disbelief?

Also if the only one to be trusted is Allah, then we cannot trust the Qur'an, because it wasn't passed to us directly from him, but through many generations of fallible humans.

Belief in Islam has the prerequisite of belief in the people who passed its doctrine.

Conclusion

• Nun definitely means "whale", because Jonah (who was eaten by a whale) was called "man of the Nun".
• The turjuman ul-Qur'an Ibn Abbas, along with the most respected Islamic scholars, both sunni and shia, agree that Nun in the verse 68:1 refers to the whale which carries the Earth on its back.
• The Earth is supossedly attached to the whale with mountains. The mountains function as pegs.
  • So the Islamic whale also helps to explain the verse 78:7 about mountains being "pegs".
• The scholars who based their knowledge on reading the Arabic Qur'an and hadiths believed that the Earth is flat and it is attached with mountains (as pegs) to a big whale.

See Also

• Video: The Masked Arab - Islam & the whale that carries the Earth on its back
• Scientific Errors in the Quran

References