Prophet Nuh (Noah) (نوح) — Complete Story in the Quran

Nuh calls his people by night and by day. Yet the invitation does not draw many closer; they flee from it all the more. When he tells his Lord what has happened, he describes more than an unanswered call. He recounts what they do whenever he invites them towards forgiveness.

“Whenever I called them so that You might forgive them, they put their fingers in their ears and wrapped themselves in their garments. They persisted and remained deeply arrogant.”

They refuse to listen and withdraw from the call. Nuh does not confine himself to one way of reaching them. He calls publicly. He speaks openly, and he speaks privately. Their rejection does not end his invitation; he carries it to them in different ways.

Nor are his words only a warning about the end. “Ask your Lord to forgive you,” he tells them. “He forgives again and again. He will send abundant rain, strengthen you with wealth and sons, and provide gardens and rivers for you.”

While they close their ears, he speaks of a future still open: forgiveness, provision, water and growth. That contrast lies between his call and their answer. Nuh seeks their return to their Lord; they evade the very words inviting them towards forgiveness.

Nuh asks why they do not show Allah the reverence He is due. Their own beginning is already part of his answer: Allah created them through different stages. They should attend not only to the words they reject, but to what makes their existence possible at all.

“Have you not seen how Allah created seven heavens one above another? He made the moon a light within them and the sun a lamp.”

The call moves from their own creation to the heavens, the moon and the sun, then back to the earth. Allah brought them forth from the earth. He will return them to it and bring them forth again. The life they now lead is not the whole story. Their origin and their return belong to their Lord no less than their present does.

“Allah spread the earth out for you, so that you might travel its broad paths.”

Nuh speaks of the ground beneath their journeys and the light above them. His invitation to worship is not detached from their lives. The very world in which they move is under the power of the Creator towards whom he calls them. They can evade Nuh. Their creation, death and return, however, are not in their own hands.

“My people, worship Allah. You have no god besides Him.” Nuh addresses the people to whom he has been sent and joins his call to a warning: he fears for them the punishment of a mighty, painful day.

The leaders do not answer with a willingness to heed it. They declare Nuh himself to be in error. “We see you plainly astray.”

Nuh rejects the accusation without presenting himself as a different kind of being. “My people, I am not astray. I am a messenger from the Lord of the worlds. I convey my Lord’s messages to you and advise you sincerely. From Allah I know what you do not know.”

Yet the fact that a man addresses them becomes an objection to his mission. The unbelieving leaders say of him: “He is only a human being like you. He wants to set himself above you. Had Allah wished, He would have sent angels. We have heard nothing like this from our ancestors.”

They attribute to him an ambition for superiority. Then they call him a man afflicted by possession and urge the people to wait for a while. The dispute changes its focus: Nuh calls them to the one God; his opponents discuss his person, their forefathers and what form they think a messenger should take. The human being in their midst becomes their reason for rejecting his message.

Not everyone rejects Nuh. There are people who follow him. Yet the unbelieving leaders turn even this against him. “We see only a man like ourselves in you,” they say. “At first glance, only those we regard as the lowest among us follow you. We see no advantage you have over us. Rather, we think you are liars.”

Their contempt targets both the messenger and the believers. Nuh answers with a question: what if he has received clear proof from his Lord and a mercy hidden from them? Can he force them to accept it against their will?

He asks for no wealth in return for his call. He expects his reward from Allah alone. And he will not expel the people who believe. They will meet their Lord. “My people, who would protect me from Allah if I drove them away? Will you not reflect?”

When they ask whether they should believe him while those they despise follow him, he answers: “What do I know about what they used to do?” Those people’s account belongs to his Lord. He is a plain warner, not someone who excludes believers at their opponents’ demand.

He also defines the limits of his own position. He does not claim to possess Allah’s treasures. He does not know the unseen or say that he is an angel. Nor will he deny Allah’s goodness to the people his opponents look down upon. Allah knows better what is within them. Were Nuh to judge beyond that, he would himself be among those who do wrong.

Nuh addresses his people even when his presence and his reminders of Allah’s signs become burdensome to them. He does not conceal the conflict. “My people, if my presence and my reminders of Allah’s signs weigh upon you: I place my trust in Allah.”

Then he confronts their resolve. They should bring their plan together, along with the beings they associate with Allah. Their undertaking should not remain uncertain to them. After that, they should act against him and grant him no delay.

It is a challenge to the people who cannot bear his call. Nuh does not set an alliance with other gods against theirs. He names the one upon whom he relies: Allah.

And he reminds them of what he has not asked of them. “If you turn away, I have demanded no payment from you. My reward belongs to Allah alone. I have been commanded to be among those who submit to Him.”

Whether they follow him or turn away does not make his mission a bargain. The call remains directed towards the same Lord; his trust does not depend upon the payment his people might offer him.

Nuh tells his Lord that the people have disobeyed him. Instead, they follow those whose wealth and children only increase their loss. The power they take as their guide does not lead them towards rescue.

A tremendous plot accompanies their rejection. There is also a call to hold fast to the gods they worship: “Do not abandon your gods. Do not give up Wadd, nor Suwa, Yaghuth, Ya'uq or Nasr.”

The names make their resistance concrete. Nuh calls them to Allah alone. The opposing call urges them not to relinquish precisely the gods he seeks to turn them away from. The refusal of individual people also becomes a message intended to keep others in the same attachment.

Nuh tells his Lord that they have already misled many. His prayer now includes this request: “Increase those who do wrong only in their straying.”

This is no longer the promised rain following a request for forgiveness. Beside the call they reject stands their own call to persist. Nuh brings this too before his Lord: not as an indistinct misunderstanding, but as disobedience, plotting and the leading of others astray.

The opponents do not ask Nuh for another explanation. They turn the dispute itself into an accusation: “Nuh, you have argued with us and prolonged this argument. Then bring upon us what you threaten, if you are truthful.”

They demand that the warning become an immediate demonstration. Nuh does not answer that punishment is within his own power. “Allah alone will bring it upon you, if He wills. You cannot escape Him.”

Nor is his counsel independent of Allah’s will. Nuh explains that his sincere wish to advise them will not benefit them if Allah wills to leave them astray. “He is your Lord. To Him you will be returned.”

There is also an open threat against the messenger: “If you do not stop, Nuh, you will be among those who are stoned.”

They challenge the announced punishment while threatening the man who warns them about it. Nuh’s answer keeps the two distinct: he is the warner, not the master of judgement. The Lord they reject remains the same Lord to whom they will finally return.

Nuh is accused of lying. They call Allah’s servant possessed and rebuff him harshly. His call has faced a rejection that goes beyond looking away and refusing to listen.

Now he calls upon his Lord. “My Lord, help me, for they have called me a liar.” In another account his prayer is: “My Lord, my people have rejected me. Judge between me and them, and rescue me with the believers who are with me.”

He asks for help not only for himself. He expressly names the people who believe and stand with him. Those his opponents despise are included in his request for rescue.

And Nuh acknowledges before his Lord: “I have been overcome. Come to my aid.”

The messenger who declared his trust in Allah before his opponents now lays his situation before Allah. His prayer names the rejection, requests a judgement and includes the believers. The long call leads into this prayer. How the decision will come is not a question his people control.

Allah reveals to Nuh that none of his people will now believe except those who already have. He is not to grieve over what the others do. The call has reached a limit now disclosed to him by his Lord.

Then he receives a new command: “Build the ship under Our watch and according to Our revelation. Do not address Me on behalf of those who do wrong. They will be drowned.”

Nuh builds the ship. As he works, leaders from his people pass by and mock him. They do not reject his words alone. The construction he undertakes at Allah’s command also becomes an occasion for their mockery.

Nuh answers: “If you mock us, we will mock you as you now mock us. You will come to know whom a humiliating punishment will strike, and upon whom an enduring punishment will descend.”

Their certainty about who is to be scorned is challenged. For now they see the messenger building a ship and make him the object of their mockery. He announces a different decision: their judgement of him will not determine who stands humiliated at the end. Nuh continues the work while the command for rescue and the announcement of drowning stand side by side.

The command to build is linked to a sign. When Allah’s command comes and the oven overflows, Nuh is to take those designated aboard the ship. The moment is determined not by his people’s mockery, but by his Lord’s instruction.

Nuh must take a pair of each kind and his family. Yet an exception is expressly made for the family: those against whom the decree has already been given. The believers must also board. Only a few have believed with him.

The instruction therefore contains both closeness and a boundary. Nuh’s family is named; the exception is not hidden. The believers are named; their small number is no reason to leave them behind. But he must not intercede with Allah for those who do wrong: their announced fate is drowning.

Then the command comes, and the oven overflows. Allah directs Nuh to bring aboard the pairs, his family with the stated exception, and the believers. The ship whose construction the leaders mocked becomes the place of commanded rescue. The invitation is no longer to debate Nuh’s position. It is to board.

The gates of heaven are opened with pouring water. At the same time, Allah causes springs to burst from the earth. Water comes from above and breaks forth from the ground. The waters meet for a matter already decreed.

The ship is no longer merely a construction that mockers pass by. Allah carries Nuh upon the vessel made of planks and fastenings. It travels under His watch.

The building and the voyage belong to the same command. First Nuh was instructed to construct the ship according to his Lord’s revelation. Now, as heaven and earth release their waters, it carries him. The rescue is for the servant whom his people denied.

His opponents saw Nuh as a man to whom they would concede no distinction. They despised his believers and mocked his work. In what now unfolds, their judgements cannot hold back the water. The ship travels under the watch of the Lord in whom Nuh placed his trust.

Nuh addresses those who board: “Come aboard. In Allah’s name are her sailing and her resting. My Lord forgives and is merciful.” His Lord’s name stands over the voyage and its ending alike.

The ship carries its passengers through waves like mountains. Amid this, Nuh calls to one of his sons, who is apart. The warning is no longer directed only to a people. It reaches the son whom his father expressly calls to join him aboard.

“My son, board with us. Do not remain with the unbelievers.”

The son answers with another plan. “I will take refuge on a mountain. It will protect me from the water.” While Nuh calls him to the ship, he names the mountain as the place from which he expects protection.

Nuh rejects that promise. “Today no one protects against Allah’s command except the one upon whom He has mercy.”

Then a wave comes between them. The son is among those who drown. The father’s call and the son’s plan no longer stand side by side as two possibilities. The wave separates them, and the mountain’s promised protection does not save the son. In the very event in which Nuh and the people in the ship are carried to safety, he loses a member of his family.

Then comes the command: “Earth, swallow your water. Sky, hold back.”

The water subsides. The matter is decided. The ship comes to rest upon al-Judi. The voyage through the waves reaches its end, not at the command of those aboard, but by the same Lord under whose watch they have been carried.

Heaven and earth, from which the water came, receive the command to stop and to take the water back. The rising flood is followed by its retreat. The ship rests after carrying Nuh and those with him.

And it is said: “Away with the people who did wrong.”

The mockery during construction, the demand that punishment be brought and the claim of another escape from the water have not changed the decision. The flood is no longer rising. The ship is no longer sailing. Yet coming to rest does not end every question for Nuh. Beside the rescue he has received stands the loss of his son.

Nuh calls upon his Lord. His request joins what he says about his son to what he knows of Allah’s promise.

“My Lord, my son belongs to my family. Your promise is true, and You are the best judge.”

The father names his family relationship. At the same time, he does not question the truth of the promise. His Lord’s answer, however, shows him a boundary: the son does not belong to the family to whom rescue is promised. Allah’s answer refers to conduct that is not righteous and instructs Nuh not to request what he has no knowledge of.

“I admonish you, lest you be among those without knowledge.”

The promise is not withdrawn. Nuh is taught what he cannot infer from it. The son remains his relative; that does not give him a claim to set aside the stated exception to the judgement.

Nuh answers his Lord: “I seek refuge with You from asking You for something of which I have no knowledge. Unless You forgive me and have mercy upon me, I will be among the losers.”

His next prayer does not oppose that boundary. He seeks refuge with Allah and asks for forgiveness and mercy. The messenger who has received rescue still depends upon his Lord’s instruction concerning his own request.

The rescue includes words of gratitude that Allah teaches Nuh. When he is aboard with the others, he should say: “All praise belongs to Allah, who has rescued us from the people who do wrong.” He should also ask: “My Lord, grant me a blessed landing. You are the best to bring us to land.”

The rescue leads not only away from opponents. It leads towards a new beginning for which Nuh is to ask blessing. The event contains signs and is also a trial.

Then the instruction reaches him: “Nuh, disembark in peace from Us, with blessings upon you and upon communities from those who are with you.”

The rescued are not simply dismissed from the account. Peace and blessing are pronounced upon them. Yet the view of the communities contains a further boundary: there will be communities whom Allah allows enjoyment for a time, and whom a painful punishment from Him will afterwards touch.

The beginning is blessed without an indiscriminate promise concerning the future of every person to come. Nuh may disembark. His long mission has taken him through rejection, construction and the flood. Now his new beginning stands under the peace his Lord pronounces upon him.

Behind this ending lies a span the Quran names with a number: Nuh remained among his people for a thousand years less fifty. Nine hundred and fifty years precede the flood that overtook them while they were doing wrong. His call by night and day belongs to that long stay, not to a single warning swiftly rejected.

Nuh had asked whether they were astonished that a reminder from their Lord should reach them through a man from among themselves. He was to warn them so that they might be mindful of Allah and receive mercy. They rejected him. Allah rescued him and those with him in the ship, and drowned those who denied His signs.

The laden ship carried the rescued. They became successors; the rescue and the ship became a sign for the worlds. Most of his people had not believed. His Lord is mighty and merciful.

Nuh had called upon Allah, and Allah answered him. He rescued him and his family from the great distress and made his descendants those who remained. Nuh’s remembrance also remained among later generations.

“Peace be upon Nuh among the worlds.”

This greeting stands at the end of the long call and rejection. Nuh is among Allah’s believing servants. His Lord names the rescue as a recompense for those who do good, while the others drowned. His people’s mockery is not the final word concerning him.

Nuh’s call also includes the grave prayers preserved in the surah bearing his name. “My Lord, leave none of the unbelievers dwelling upon the earth,” he asks. Within that prayer he names what will happen if they remain: “They will mislead Your servants and bring forth only descendants who act wickedly and persist in unbelief.”

Nuh is speaking here about the people who refused his call and led others astray. The prayer names the continuation of that misguidance as the reason for his request for judgement.

Beside it, he asks for forgiveness, and this part extends beyond himself. “My Lord, forgive me and my parents. Forgive whoever enters my house as a believer, and the believing men and women. Increase those who do wrong only in their ruin.”

The messenger does not place himself outside the request for forgiveness. He names his parents, the believers who enter his house, and believing women and men as a whole.

The account also explains the judgement upon the opponents: because of their transgressions, they were drowned and made to enter fire. They found no helpers besides Allah. The gods they had clung to brought them no rescue. Alongside this ending remains Nuh’s request for forgiveness for the believers.

The account of Nuh itself becomes the subject of an accusation: it has been invented. The Quran sets an answer against it: “Had I invented it, I would bear responsibility for my own wrongdoing. I am free of your wrongdoing.” The accusation does not strip the preserved event of its significance.

After Nuh’s disembarkation, the revelation addresses Muhammad: these accounts belong to the unseen that Allah reveals to him. Neither he nor his people knew them before. The instruction to remain patient follows. The good outcome belongs to those mindful of Allah.

The ship also remains a sign in remembrance. The question is whether anyone will take heed. The Quran recalls the punishment and the warnings and declares that Allah has made the Quran accessible for remembrance. Again it asks: is there anyone who will take heed?

Nuh’s story therefore does not end at the name al-Judi. The call his people rejected reaches other people through revelation. Their answer has not yet been told. The question of listening, against which his people closed their ears, remains open for those who now learn of him.