{And We sent him to a hundred thousand or more}

The sending—according to what more than one has reported on the authority of Mujahid, al-Hasan, and Qatadah—is the first sending that occurred before the whale swallowed him. Therefore, the conjunction is linked to His saying, "And indeed Yunus..." and so on, by way of clarification, because it indicates the beginning and the end of the situation, as well as the intended purpose of the sending, which is faith. His story was inserted between them due to the attention given to it, owing to its remarkable nature.

An objection was raised against this, stating that the fa (conjunction "then") in His saying, "Then they believed," refuses the interpretation of it being the first sending, because those people did not believe immediately following his first sending, but rather after he had departed from them. It was answered that this is a customary sequence, similar to saying, "He married, then a child was born to him." It has also been said that the most likely interpretation is that the fa is for detailing or causality. Others have said that it is a second sending to them after what had befallen him, and thus the conjunction is linked to what is present in his account.