The Islamic Whale

The Islamic whale (in Arabic الحوت الإسلامي, al-hoot al-islami), is a mythological creature described in Islamic texts that carries the Earth on its back. It is also called Nun (نون), which is also the name of the Arabic letter "n" ن. Two alternative names of the whale are Liwash and Lutiaya.^[1] The details behind the mentioning of this creature are unclear. The name Nun is derived from one of the mysterious letters which appear before the start of certain surahs in the Quran. However, the whale does feature in Hadith and Tafsir explanations of verses. The concept appears to be of Jewish origin.^[2]

From all of the earliest Sunni and Shi'a sources today available to us, it does appear that the earliest Muslims believed the letter "nun" in the Qur'an surah 68:1 refers to a giant whale upon whose back the entire earth rests. This belief is attributed by numerous Islamic scholars of high repute to "tarjumaan al-qur'an", Ibn Abbas, and was mentioned thereafter by many trusted Islamic scholars all the way up until the 19th century - though they mention it alongside other different interpretations. According to this cosmography, the earth is (actually the 7 earths are) attached to the back of the whale by means of the mountains, which are pegs to balance the earth upon the Nun's back. This cosmography fits in with a widespread ancient belief that the world was balanced upon the back of giant animals, and the even more primordial belief that the world is surrounded by a giant, unending body of water.

Nun in the Qur'an

The letter nun appears in the verse 68:1^[3] as one of the mysterious letters (muqattaʿat) which appear before the start of 29 surahs in the Quran (for example alif lam mim before Surah al-Baqarah). One popular theory to explain these letters was proposed by Theodor Nöldeke, that they were simply an indication of the scribes or owners of the sheets for those surahs when the Quran was first compiled.

Most respected scholars of Islam (Ibn Kathir, At-Tabari, Al-Qurtubi and others including Al-Jalalayn) reported the belief that Nun refers to a whale that carries the Earth on its back:^[4]

Word-by-word translation of the Qur'anic verse:

• 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 ipso facto, but it is necessary to have an understanding of this idea in order to understand much of the traditional interpretation of the Qur'an and early Islamic cosmography. For example, in verse 21:87 Jonah is called "man of the Nun", which has been interpreted as meaning that he was eaten by a whale^[5][6]:

Relevant Quotations

Surah 68 famously begins with the letter nun (نٓ), one of 29 surahs that begin with mysterious letters (muqattaʿat).

A Fish/Whale (l-ḥūt الحوت) which swallowed Yunus (Jonah) is mentioned in the same chapter:

Another surah mentions al-nun (ٱلنُّونِ), which is how the letter nun (نٓ) is spoken. The verse was understood to be a reference to the creature which swallowed Yunus (Jonah):

Hadiths

In a lengthy hadith, a Jew tests Muhammad's knowledge on a number of questions. One of these concerns the food of the people of paradise. The word translated "the fish" is actually al-nun. Muhammad answers that they will eat the caudate lobe of liver of "al-nun" (قَالَ ‏زِيَادَةُ كَبِدِ النُّونِ). In addition they will eat a bull which grazes around paradise.

Ibn Hajar in his famous commentary on on Sahih al-Bukhari (Fath al Bari) mentions this hadith regarding al-nun, adding that "Al-Tabari mentioned through al-Dahhak on the authority of Ibn Abbas, he said, 'The bull butts the whale with its horn, so the people of Paradise eat from it, then it is resurrected and the bull is slaughtered with its tail, and they eat it, then it is resurrected and this process continues'".

A number of narrations reported from companions (particularly Ibn Abbas) mention the nun as a giant whale beneath the earth. A giant bull also features in some of these narrations. These concepts can be seen also in early Jewish texts, probably including the Apocalypse of Abraham (2nd century CE). For details of the above, see this article.

Tafsir Ibn Kathir

Ibn Kathir lists three different interpretations and spends a good bit of text on the first interpretation which can be summarized as: In the beginning, Allah created the pen before all else. The pen asked "what do I write" and Allah told it to write the letter ن "nun" or "N" which is actually a whale upon whose back he balanced the entire world:

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

Another variation of this hadith from At-Tabari:

The hadith (narration) by Ibn Abbas (collected by At-Tabari) is considered صحيح (sahih)^[7], which means it is considered to be an authentic narration in the traditional estimation of hadith. According to the tradition Ibn Abbas holds a special place in the scheme of hadith preservers, for Muhammad made du'a(prayer) for Ibn Abbas, so that Allah would teach him the true interpretation of the Qur'an. Ibn Abbas was also called turjuman ul-Qur'an (ترجمان القرآن) id est "translator of the Qur'an", because he had such a deep knowledge about the interpretation (tarjama, literally translation) of the revelations.

His narration also explains why mountains are described as pegs in the Qur'an. It is because, according the traditional Islamic cosmology, the earth would fall off of the back of the whale without the pegs that hold it^[8]:

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

Tafsir Al-Tabari

At-Tabari mentions several interpretations. One of them is this:

In Islamic cosmology there are seven flat Earths, just like there are seven heavens:

They are placed on the whale like flapjacks on a plate, stacked one atop the other.

Tafsir Al-Qurtubi

Al-Qurtubi mentions several interpretations. One of them is that the Nun is the whale which is under the 7th (lowest) Earth:

From his use of the word "tahat" or "under" it can be surmised that in Al-Qurtubi's cosmology the earth is seen as flat.

ِTafsir Al-Kabir (by Al-Razi)

Al-Kabir here repeates the idea that there are multiple flat earths balanced on the back of the whale.

ِTafsir Fath Al-Qadir (by Shawkani)

This tafsir is from the 18th century and it mentions several interpretations. One of them is the idea that the world is carried on the back of a whale:

Hadith Al-Kafi (shia)

Hadith Al-Kafi, one of the most prestigious Shi'ite hadith, also confirms that a whale carries the earth upon its back:

Tafsir Al-Tusi (shia)

The first comprehensive Shia tafsir^[14] says this about the Nun:

There is thus attestation of Nun the whale in both the Sunni and Shi'ite tradition.

The Qur'anic Cosmology vis-à-vis Modern Science

The world view evinced in the tasfir is one fundamentally at odds with the modern, scientific understanding of cosmology, earth sciences and geology. The authors of the tafsir tradition and the Qur'an seem to have been operating on the assumption that the earth that the human race inhabits is flat, and moreover it is only one of many different earths. The belief that the world is balanced on the back of a giant cosmological animal is not peculiar to Islam--witness the Hindu tradition of Akupāra (Sanskrit: अकूपार), also know as Kurma and Chukwa, the giant tortoise who supports the 16 elephants who hold up the world, or the Chinese myth of the sea turtle Ao whose sawed off legs prop up the world. The idea of a giant animal holding up the world is a myth found in many pre-scientific cultures.

Other interpretations of Nun

Although many traditional tafsir explain 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). Many surahs in the Qur'an actually start with mysterious letters that don't have any immediate meaning. This does beg the question of what these letters mean in the first place, and from the perspective of a believing Muslim why Allah would start his revelations out with random letters, but considering it does fall into an accepted Qur'anic pattern it does at least offer an explanation for its presense. Another point is the word following the Nun, "walqalami" "by the pen." The Arabic formation for oaths and swears is to add و "wa" a particle meaning generally "and" to a noun in the majruur (genetive) case, producing the swearing oath: "والله" "wallahi" "by God!" "والشمس" "washamsi" "by the sun!" etc. Since the word "qalam" or "pen" is in the genitive case, it should be understood to be a swear, and this seems likely. It should however be remembered that the original "rasm" or consonantal text for the Qur'an lacked the vowel markings which in this case marks the word as being in the genitive. The original text thus might not have had this word in the genitive case, in which case the meaning would simply be "and the pen." It is thus possible that in the original the "wa" functioned simply as an "and" and the original meaning was thus simply "(the letter) nun, and the pen, and what they write."

"N" in "Ar-Rahmaan"

The word الرحمن, Ar-Rahman, "the gracious" is one of the titles of Allah. The 13th sura starts with three letters الر, and a few suras start with the letters حم (see the comment on random letters at the beginning of surahs above). Putting these together produces الر + حم + ن= الرحمن "Ar-rahmaan."

• 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 however and no convincing argument can be made for producing relevant words from most of them.

Nun means "ink"

A proposed solution for this is that the nun here means "ink" in the nominative case, in which case 68:1 would mean "The ink and the pen and that which they write". This solution suffers from some issues:

• 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 according to the traditional narrative. The word "Qur'an" itself means "recitation" in the traditional understanding. It should also be noted, however, that the word Qur'an may have a Syriac antecedent in the word "Qeryaanaa", meaning a lectionary, the book of scripture readings in traditional Christian masses. With this understanding the meaning of "ink" might make more sense.

"Allah knows best"

"Allah knows best", in other words "the author knows what he meant", is an explanation offered by some Muslim commentators, indicating that even with the traditional narrative understanding the mysterious letters at the start of this surah and others is difficult topic.

Modern Muslim Scholarly and Apologetic Views

Today, Muslim scholars^[16], realizing how at odds this cosmography of giant animals and oceans is with modern science, have attempted to refute the reliability of the traditional whale interpretation.

It's not in the Qur'an

The letter Nun appears at the start of surah 68 al-Qalam and it was used in spelled out form in another verse 21:87 to mean "whale". However, it is not clearly stated in the Qur'an that Nun is the whale which carries the Earth on its back. The Qur'an speaks about mountains being like pegs, which may support the "whale cosmology" and the two are linked in one version of the hadith. If there is nothing under the Earth, then there is no reason for mountains to function as pegs.

When something is not in the Qur'an, then it doesn't mean it was never 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. At one time, the whale was part of Islamic cosmography until knowledge improved and this became unsustainable.

The strength of the hadith mawqoof

A problem often mentioned in regards to this tradition is that it relies on Hadith rated as "mawqoof" or originating with a companion of the prophet. In traditional Sunni exegisis however this has not normally been seen as an issue:

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

Only the early scholars believed it

It's sometimes claimed that only early scholars believed this, a strange claim considering that antiquity usually validates rather than invalidates views and doctrines in Islamic theology and jurisprudence. This view is, incidentally, not entirely accurate so far as it goes, as the idea of the earth-bearing whale was mentioned even by the prominent Yemeni Sunni Islamic scholar, Al-Shawkani who died in the year 1834 CE who wrote about it in his commentary on this verse.

Jewish Origins

There are some modern claims that this story/doctrine comes from Judaism. Neither the Bible, Talmud, targums, Mishnah mentions the idea of the earth-bearing whale, although as mentioned above, the Apocalypse of Abraham may be an antecendant to the concept as well as the giant bull. There is also a myth of a big sea monster called "Leviathan" in the Bible:

It's not clear whether it is a whale or a dolphin or a crocodile (although the word is construed in modern Hebrew to mean "whale", but this has no necessary implication for the word in the time of Isaiah). It was also described as a dragon and serpent. There are many different interpretations. In Judaism Leviathan is sometimes understood metaphorically as a great enemy of Israel. In Christianity Leviathan is sometimes understood as Satan. Neither the Bible nor any extra-biblical Judaic text say that the Leviathan holds the earth on its back, but there is a rabbinic text saying that Leviathan is a flying serpent who has "middle bar of the earth" between its fins:

Insofar as the Leviathan is interpreted as being a whale, it is possible that this was the origin of the myth. The entirety of the myth itself though does not appear to be Jewish in origin, rather being an obvious Islam accretion.

Ibn Abbas Receiving the Story from the Jews

Some modern Islamic scholars attribute this story to Jewish sources, basing this idea on the fact that ibn Abbas often took and retold Jewish stories. Interestingly, there exist sahih hadiths which appear to permit exactly this sort of re-narration:

This hadith appears to allow taking stories from Jewish sources. In the phrase "of Bani Israel" (عَنْ بَنِي إِسْرَائِيلَ), the word عن can mean both "from" and "about". Some Islamic scholars contest that this, coupled with the fact that the beginning of the hadith reads, literally translated, "convey from me" (بلغوا عني), it is more likely that Muhammad's message is to narration stories about Jews from Islamic sources.

Fath ul-Bari says in his commentary:

Still, at the same time, some competing Islamic scholars argue that there is not anything wrong with taking Jewish stories from and retelling them for Muslims with an Islamic spin - with modern historians note, In fact, that where a Jewish or Christian narrative on any given topic, the Quran usually reiterates this with some changes made suitable to Islamic theology.

Those scholars arguing against the validity of the biblical references often couple the foregoing hadith with another hadith from Sahih Al-Bukhari, from the chapter entitled “Do not ask the people of the Scripture about anything”:

Islamic scholars are again divided on the interpretation of this hadith. Some argue that Muslims should ignore the Jews, because some of the Jewish stories are right, while others are wrong.. Other scholars emphasize the final part of the hadith with says Muslims ought to believe in whatever was revealed to the Jews, and thereby arrive at the conclusion that narrating from them is acceptable.

Imam Shafi'i, for instance, explicitly prohibits retelling the "lies" of the Jewish traditions:

من المعلوم أن النبي صلى الله عليه وسلم لا يجيز التحدث بالكذب ، فالمعنى حدثوا عن بني إسرائيل بما لا تعلمون كذبه ، وأما ما تجوزونه فلا حرج عليكم في التحدث به عنهم [ ص: 576 ] وهو نظير قوله : إذا حدثكم أهل الكتاب فلا تصدقوهم ولا تكذبوهم ولم يرد الإذن ولا المنع من التحدث بما يقطع بصدقه 

Another important quote from Ibn Abbas himself is also found in the chapter “Do not ask the people of the Scripture about anything”, however. This narration appears to cast doubt on the idea that ibn Abbas was in the habit of taking stories from the Jews:

It Was Ibn Abbas’s Personal Opinion

Some modern Islamic scholars argue that Ibn Abbas was sharing his personal views on cosmology. In the hadiths themselves, by contrast, Ibn Abbas attributes the story directly to Allah. This would create two primary issues with the credibility of Ibn Abbas from an Islamic theological standpoint, if these Islamic scholars are correct, namely:

1) That lying about Allah is forbidden:

2) And that attributing stories to Allah without knowledge is forbidden and an act of Satan:

A position that entails Ibn Abbas did both of the above things would appear to collide with the Islamic doctrine regarding the unerring reliability of Muhammad's companions as narrators.

The Cosmic bull

As well as the Islamic whale, further cosmic animals supporting the Earth have appeared in Islamic folklore cosmography throughout the early and medieval periods, such as Kujata, the Islamic Cosmic Bull (which some scholars believed was in-between the whale and Earth - as can be seen in this Islamic World Map by Zekeriya Kazvinî). While these are not all necessarily linked to traditions or the Qur'an, they are somewhat problematic to those that propose the Qur'an contains scientific foreknowledge of modern cosmology.

See Also

• Cosmology of the Quran

External Links

• The Masked Arab - Islam & the whale that carries the Earth on its back (video)
• Islamwhattheydonttellyou164 - Part 34: Islamic Creation Myth: The Honest Truth (video)
• Islam Critiqued - A Whale of a Tale in Muslim Sources (video)
• The Islam Issue - The Nun whale and it’s origins in early Islam (blog)

Translations

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References