The Quran

Preface

فَلَولا كانَت قَريَةٌ آمَنَت فَنَفَعَها إيمانُها إِلّا قَومَ يونُسَ لَمّا آمَنوا كَشَفنا عَنهُم عَذابَ الخِزيِ فِي الحَياةِ الدُّنيا وَمَتَّعناهُم إِلىٰ حينٍ

Yusuf Ali

Why was there not a single township (among those We warned), which believed,- so its faith should have profited it,- except the People¹ of Jonah? When they believed, We removed from them the penalty of ignominy in the life of the present, and permitted them to enjoy (their life) for a while.²

God in His infinite Mercy points out the contumacy or Sin as a warning, and the exceptional case of Nineveh and its Prophet Jonah is alluded to. The story of Jonah is told in 37:139-148, which would be an appropriate place for further comments (Cf. n. 2744). Here it is sufficient to note that Nineveh was a very ancient town which is now no longer on the map. Its site is believed to be marked by the two mounds on the left bank of the Tigris, opposite the flourishing city of Mosul on the right bank, about 230 miles north-northwest of Baghdad. One of the mounds bears the name of the “the Tomb of Nabi Yunus.” Archaeologists have not yet fully explored its antiquities, but it is clear that it was a very old Sumerian town, perhaps older than 3500 B.C. It became the capital of Assyria. The first Assyrian Empire under Shalmanester I, about 1300 B.C., became the supreme power in Western Asia. Babylon, whose tributary Assyria had formerly been, now became tributary to Assyria. The second Assyrian Empire arose about 745 B.C., and Sennacherib (705-681 B.C.) beautified the town with many public works. It was destroyed by the Scythians (so-called Medes) in 612 B.C. If the date of Jonah were assumed to be about 800 B.C., it would be between the First and Second Assyrian Empire; when the City was nearly destroyed for its sins, but on account of its repentance was given a new lease of glorious life in the Second Empire.
The point of the allusion here may be thus explained: Nineveh was a great and glorious City; but it became, like Babylon, a city of sin. God sent the prophet Yunus (Jonah) to warn it. Full of iniquities though it was, it listened to the warning, perhaps in the person of a few just men. For their sakes, the All-Merciful God spared it, and gave it a new lease of glorious life. According to the chronology in the last note the new lease would be for about two centuries, after which it perished completely for its sins and abominations. Note that its new lease of life was for its collective life as a City, the life of the Present, i.e., of this World. It does not mean that individual sinners escaped the spiritual consequences of their sin, unless they individually repented and obtained God’s mercy and forgiveness.