Transformations in Early Muslim Prophetology: From Typology to Teleology in Narratives of Jonah and the Ninevites

Abstract

Qur'anic and post-Qur'anic accounts about Jonah and the Ninevites encode traces of ideological transformations in the early Muslim community. This article explores how the story of a prophet's anguished mission to a foreign, enemy people appears in early Muslim materials in varied iterations. Whereas the Qur'anic telling of the Jonah narrative has an inclusivist, universalist subtext, post-Qur'anic retellings have clear supersessionist overtones, a change which reflects attitudinal shifts in the way early Muslims imagined themselves as a prophetic community in relation to a prophetic past. This article describes the shift as a transition from a typological to a teleological mode of historical legitimation.