The Islamic Whale: Difference between revisions

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 all of the trusted sources of Islamic jurisprudence 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 cosmogony, the earth (actually the 7 earths are) is 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 cosmogony 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.

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:

{{Quote|2=نۤ حوت عظيم <br>

'''Nun is a big whale.'''}}

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

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

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: