By Emad Botros
As I was reading my colleague Martin Accad’s ABTS Blog article from last year, “What’s in a Name?: A Case for Using ‘Isa in Arabic Translations of the Bible,” my mind continually turned to another Biblical figure, Jonah, who appears in the Arabic Bible under the name Yunan and in the Qur’an under the name Yūnus. While Martin took us on a journey to explore some possible suggestions for the Qur’anic use of the name Issa, rather than the Arabic name Yasu‘ in Arabic translations, I thought more about the relationship between the Biblical story of Jonah (Yunan) and that of Yūnus in the Qur’an and how our understanding of these stories affects our attitude towards the Qur’an. Furthermore, I considered the implications this understanding of the relationship between sacred texts has on our approaches to thinking about and engaging with Muslims.
I recently taught a seminary course on Reading Jonah in a Middle Eastern Context. In this class, students asked some questions: Is Yūnus the same person as Jonah? Why does the Qur’an change the name of the prophet Jonah to Yūnus? Why do we have a different “version” of the story of Jonah in the Qur’an? All these questions, and many others, are common, legitimate, and have been entertained by scholars and practitioners for some time.