142 Preface فَالتَقَمَهُ الحوتُ وَهُوَ مُليمٌYusuf AliThen the big Fish1 did swallow him, and he had done2 acts worthy of blame.The rivers of Mesopotamia have some huge fishes. The word used here is Hut, which may be a fish or perhaps a crocodile. If it were in an open northern sea, it might be a whale. The locality is not mentioned: in the Old Testament he is said to have taken ship in the port of Joppa (now Jaffa) in the Mediterranean (Jonah. 1:3), which would be not less than 600 miles from Nineveh. The Tigris river, mentioned by some of our Commentators, is more likely, and it contains some fishes of extraordinary size.See n. 4120.