Prophet Yunus prayed to Allah this dua when he was in the belly of the whale as he recognised the mistake he had made. This itself is a big thing, recognizing when you are in the wrong, unfortunately many people don’t acknowledge they have wronged let alone ask forgiveness.

If we further look into the situation Yunus was in, that being he was alone – no one was with him, he didn’t have support from any other person, he was in a place where no one could find him. He was in a belly of a whale, which would have been dark, cold and his future bleak, so he would have been scared, shocked and absolutely petrified. The whale would have been going through the seas even at the bottom of the oceans, which is the lowest level any one can go.

Being in that situation, one can image the state Yunus would have been in, scared of the unknown, fearful and restless.

The beauty of Yunus story is what he does, which he turns to Allah as he knows there is no one who can help except the all mighty. In life one will recognise eventually at some point, that Allah is the only one.

Important lesson from Yunus story is to ask ourselves what exactly did he do wrong that he found himself in this situation – can you say he committed a major sin, was he corrupt or did he oppress people – the answer is he did none of this. He made a mistake of not being patient enough with his people – are we patient with our parents, children, families and others the answer mostly like is no.