071
The Message of the Quran
Muhammad Asad
NUH (NOAH)
THE SEVENTY-FIRST
SURAH
Total Verses: 28
Introduction
DEVOTED in its entirety to Noah's preaching to his erring
fellow-men, this surah depicts symbolically every conscious believer's
struggle against blind materialism and the resulting lack of all spiritual
values. The story of Noah as such is mentioned in several places in the Qur'an,
and particularly in
IN THE NAME OF GOD, THE MOST GRACIOUS, THE DISPENSER OF GRACE:
(1) BEHOLD. We sent Noah unto his
people. [saying:] "Warn thy people ere grievous suffering befall them!
(2) [And Noah] said: "O my people!
I am but a plain warner to you, [sent to tell you]
(3) that you should worship God [alone]
and be conscious of Him. "Now do pay heed unto me,
(4) so that He may forgive you some of
your sins, and grant you respite until a term known [to Him alone]: 1 but,
behold, when the term appointed by God does come, it can never be put back - if
you but knew it!"
(5) [And after a time, Noah] said:
"O my Sustainer! Verily, I have been calling unto my people night and day
(6) but my call has only caused them to
flee farther and farther away [from Thee]. 2
(7) And behold, whenever I called unto
them with a view to Thy granting them forgiveness, they put their fingers into
their ears, and wrapped themselves up in their garments [of sin]; 3 and
grew obstinate, and became [yet more] arrogant in their false pride.
(8) "And behold I called unto them
openly;
(9) and, behold I preached to them in
public; and I spoke to them secretly, in private;
(10) and I said: "'Ask your
Sustainer to forgive you your sins - for, verily, He is all-forgiving!
(11) He will shower upon you heavenly
blessings abundant, 4
(12) and will aid you with worldly goods
and children, and will bestow upon you gardens, and bestow upon you running
waters. 5
(13) "'What is amiss with you that
you cannot look forward to God's majesty, 6
(14) seeing that He has created [every
one of] you in successive stages? 7
(15) "'Do you not see how God has
created seven heavens in full harmony with one another, 8
(16) and has set up within them the moon
as a light [reflected] and set up the sun as a [radiant] lamp? 9
(17) "'And God has caused you to
grow out of the earth in [gradual] growth; 10 and
thereafter He will return you to it [in death]:
(18) and [then] He will bring you forth
[from It] in resurrection. 11
(19) "'And God has made the earth a
wide expanse for you,
(20) so that you might walk thereon on
spacious paths.’" 12
(21) [And] Noah continued: "O my
Sustainer! Behold, they have opposed me [throughout], for they follow people
whose wealth and children lead them increasingly into ruin, 13
(22) and who have devised a most awesome
blasphemy [against Thee],
(23) inasmuch as they said [to their
followers], 'Do not ever abandon your gods: abandon neither Wadd nor Suwa', and
neither Yaghuth nor Ya’uq nor Nasr!' 14
(24) "And so they have led many a
one astray: hence, ordain Thou that these evildoers stray but farther and
farther away [from all that they may desire]!" 15
(25) And so, because of their sins, they
were drowned [in the great flood], and were doomed to suffer the fire [of the
hereafter]; 16 and they found none who could succour them against God.
(26) And Noah prayed: "O my
Sustainer! Leave not on earth any of those who deny the truth:
(27) for, behold, If Thou dost leave
them, they will [always try to] lead astray those who worship Thee, and will
give birth to nothing but wickedness and stubborn ingratitude. 17
(28) "O my Sustainer! Grant Thy
forgiveness unto me and unto my parents, and unto everyone who enters my house
as a believer, and unto all believing men and believing women [of later times];
and grant Thou that the doers of evil shall increasingly meet with
destruction!"' 18
1 Namely,
until the end of each person's life - implying that although they might be
forgiven all sins committed before their postulated change of heart,
they would henceforth, until their death, be held fully accountable for their
behaviour in the light of that new-found faith. Cf. 4:18 - "repentance
shall not be accepted from those who do evil deeds until their dying hour and
then say, Behold, I now repent'".
2 Lit., "has not increased
them in anything but flight".
3 For the reason of the above
interpolation - which endows the concept of "garments" with a
metaphorical meaning - see note 2 on 74:4; cf. also the expression "garment
of God-consciousness" (libas at-taqwa) in 7:26.
4 Lit., "He will let loose
the sky over you with abundance" (but see also note 76 on 11:52).
5 The two last-mentioned blessings
are an allusion to the state of happiness in the hereafter, symbolized in the
Qur’an as "gardens through which running waters flow".
6 I.e., "that you refuse to believe
in God" (Zamakhshari). Some authorities (e.g., Jawhari) give to the
above phrase the meaning, "that you will not fear God's
majesty", which, too, implies lack of belief in Him.
7 I.e., by a process of gradual
evolution, in the mother's womb, from a drop of sperm and a fertilized
germ-cell (the female ovum), up to the point where the embryo becomes a new,
self-contained human entity (cf. 22:5): all of which points to the existence of
a plan and a purpose and, hence, to the existence of a conscious Creator.
8 Cf. 67:3 and the corresponding
note 2.
9 See 10:5, where the sun is
described as "a [source of] radiant light" (diya’) and the
moon as "light [reflected]" (nur); both these interpolations
are explained in note 10 on 10:5.
10 This phrase has a twofold
meaning. In the first instance, it alludes to the evolution of the individual
human body out of the same substances - both organic and inorganic - as are
found in and on the earth as well: and in this sense it enlarges upon the creation
of the human individual "in successive stages" referred to in verse
14 above. Secondly, it alludes to the evolution of the human species, which,
starting from the most primitive organisms living on earth, has gradually
ascended to ever higher stages of development until it has finally reached that
complexity of body, mind and soul evident in the human being.
11 Lit., "with a [final]
bringing-forth ".
12 I.e., "He has provided you
with all facilities for a good life on earth" - the unspoken implication
being, "Will you not, then, acknowledge Him and be grateful to Him?"
13 Lit., "and have followed
him whose wealth and children do not increase him in aught but loss":
i.e., people whose propensity and power only enhance their false pride and
arrogance, and thus lead them to spiritual ruin. Beyond this, we have here a
subtle allusion to the fact that an exclusive devotion to material
prosperity must of necessity, in the long run, destroy all moral values and,
thus, the very fabric of society.
14 As is evident from early
sources, these five gods were among the many worshipped by the pre-Islamic
Arabs as well (see the small but extremely valuable work by Hishim ibn Muhammad
al-Kalbi, Kitab al-Asnam, ed. Ahmad Zaki, Cairo 1914). Their cult had
probably been introduced into Arabia from Syria and Babylonia, where it seems
to have existed in earliest antiquity.
15 Lit., "increase Thou not
the evildoers in aught but in straying-away", i.e., from an achievement of
their worldly goals (Razi).
16 Lit., "and were made to
enter the fire" - the past tense indicating the inevitability of
the suffering yet to come (Zamakhshari).
17 Lit., "to such as are
wicked (fajir), stubbornly ingrate (kaffar)": but since
no one - and particularly not a prophet - is ever justified in assuming that
the progeny of evildoers must of necessity be evil, it is obvious that the
terms fajir and kaffar are used here metonymically denoting
qualities or attitudes, and not persons.
18 Lit., "increase Thou not
the evildoers in aught but destruction" - i.e., destruction of their aims
and, thus, of evil as such.