Appearance
Verses 59–64
لَقَدْ أَرْسَلْنا نُوحاً إِلى قَوْمِهِ فَقالَ يا قَوْمِ اعْبُدُوا اللَّهَ ما لَكُمْ مِنْ إِلهٍ غَيْرُهُ إِنِّي أَخافُ عَلَيْكُمْ عَذابَ يَوْمٍ عَظِيمٍ ٥٩ قالَ الْمَلَأُ مِنْ قَوْمِهِ إِنَّا لَنَراكَ فِي ضَلالٍ مُبِينٍ ٦٠ قالَ يا قَوْمِ لَيْسَ بِي ضَلالَةٌ وَ لكِنِّي رَسُولٌ مِنْ رَبِّ الْعالَمِينَ ٦١ أُبَلِّغُكُمْ رِسالاتِ رَبِّي وَ أَنْصَحُ لَكُمْ وَ أَعْلَمُ مِنَ اللَّهِ ما لا تَعْلَمُونَ ٦٢ أَ وَ عَجِبْتُمْ أَنْ جاءَكُمْ ذِكْرٌ مِنْ رَبِّكُمْ عَلى رَجُلٍ مِنْكُمْ لِيُنْذِرَكُمْ وَ لِتَتَّقُوا وَ لَعَلَّكُمْ تُرْحَمُونَ ٦٣ فَكَذَّبُوهُ فَأَنْجَيْناهُ وَ الَّذِينَ مَعَهُ فِي الْفُلْكِ وَ أَغْرَقْنَا الَّذِينَ كَذَّبُوا بِآياتِنا إِنَّهُمْ كانُوا قَوْماً عَمِينَ ٦٤
- Certainly We sent Noah to his people. And he said, “O my people, worship Allah! You have no other god besides Him. Indeed I fear for you the punishment of a tremendous day.”
- The elite of his people said, “Indeed we surely see you in manifest error.”
- He said, “O my people, I am not in error. Rather, I am a messenger from the Lord of all nations.
- I communicate to you the messages of my Lord, and I am your well-wisher, and I know from Allah what you do not know.
- Do you consider it odd that a reminder from your Lord should come to you through a man from among yourselves, to warn you so that you may be Godwary and so that you may haply receive His mercy?”
- But they denied him. So We delivered him and those who were with him in the ark, and We drowned those who denied Our signs. Indeed they were a blind lot.
Introduction
The previous verses invited the people to monotheism, and prohibited them from polytheism and denial of God’s signs and communications. In what follows, the chapter offers the stories of a few of the previous prophets in this regard, including Noah, Hūd, Ṣāliḥ, Shuʿayb (Jethro, Reuel) and Moses. In the current set of verses, we read about the story of Noah and his people. He called them to serve God alone and abandon the worship of other gods. However, the majority of his people rejected his call and insistently disobeyed him. Thus God sent a hurricane, rescued Noah and those who believed in him, and drowned the rest of his people.
Commentary
لَقَدْ أَرْسَلْنا نُوحاً إِلى قَوْمِهِ فَقالَ يا قَوْمِ اعْبُدُوا اللَّهَ ما لَكُمْ مِنْ إِلهٍ غَيْرُهُ إِنِّي أَخافُ عَلَيْكُمْ عَذابَ يَوْمٍ عَظِيمٍ ٥٩
(7:59) Certainly (la-qad) We sent Noah to his people. And he said, “O my people, worship Allah! You have no other god besides Him. Indeed I fear for you the punishment of a tremendous day.”
Noah is the first messenger [chronologically] whose story is mentioned in detail in the Qur’an. We will discuss his detailed story in Sūrah Hūd [under verses ], if God wills.
The letter lām in la-qad indicates a vow. It is an additional emphasis because the original audience of the verse were polytheists who did not believe in prophethood.
… O my people, worship Allah! You have no other god besides Him…: He ascribed his audience to himself by saying: O my people. This shows his earnest good-will for them, which is narrated from him below []. His first message to them was that of monotheism, which is implied by the two sentences stated here. One the one hand, he told them to serve God; and on the other hand, he negated the existence of all gods besides Him. Put together, it means that one must worship God alone, and should not associate any partners with Him. This amounts to monotheism.
… Indeed I fear for you the punishment of a tremendous day: This apparently refers to the Day of Resurrection. Therefore, this verse includes two of the three principle beliefs in religion: monotheism and afterlife. The third one—prophethood—is mentioned below: O my people, I am not in error. Rather, I am a messenger… (). We can arguably say that the current verse also involves an indirect reference to his messengership, because he calls them to a certain kind of worship which was foreign to them. He also warned them of something that they were ignorant of, which was the punishment of the Day of Resurrection. This implies that he was a messenger sent from the One to Whom he calls them. This is confirmed below, when he replies to his people: Do you consider it odd that a reminder from your Lord should come to you through a man from among yourselves, to warn you? (). This response shows that his people were doubtful of his mission as a messenger as soon as they heard his first call: O my people, worship Allah! You have no other god besides Him.
قالَ الْمَلَأُ مِنْ قَوْمِهِ إِنَّا لَنَراكَ فِي ضَلالٍ مُبِينٍ ٦٠
(7:60) The elite (al-malaʾ) of his people said, “Indeed we surely see (la-narāka, from ruʾyah) you in manifest error.”
Malaʾ means “the chiefs and elites of a community.” They are called malaʾ (lit. fillers) because they fill (yamlaʾūna, from the verb malaʾa) the hearts with awe and prestige, and fill the eyes with the luster of adornments and luxury. What is meant by “seeing” (ruʾyah) here is “view”—meaning one’s opinion and judgment about someone or something.
They could not imagine that anyone would come up to them, claim to be a messenger, warn them of punishment, and command them to leave their gods aside and entirely dedicate themselves to God alone. They were completely shocked by his criticism of their way, which is shown in how they emphasized his error—with the adjective “manifest” and the letter lām (surely, indeed).
قالَ يا قَوْمِ لَيْسَ بِي ضَلالَةٌ وَ لكِنِّي رَسُولٌ مِنْ رَبِّ الْعالَمِينَ ٦١
(7:61) He said, “O my people, I am not in error. Rather, I am a messenger from the Lord of all nations.
Noah answered them by first offering a negation—that he is not in error—and then offering an affirmation instead—that he is a messenger from God. He specifically referred to God as the “Lord of all worlds” to show that all Lordship exclusively belongs to God. This is against what his people believed. They believed in a division of lordship and direction of the universe among their gods. Each of their gods was believed to control a specific aspect of creation. For instance, they had a lord of the sea, a lord of the land, a lord of the earth, a lord of the sky, and so on. Noah did not use any emphasis in his reply in order to show that his messengership and his clearance from error are obvious, unlike his people who were emphatic in their claim.
أُبَلِّغُكُمْ رِسالاتِ رَبِّي وَ أَنْصَحُ لَكُمْ وَ أَعْلَمُ مِنَ اللَّهِ ما لا تَعْلَمُونَ ٦٢
(7:62) I communicate to you the messages of my Lord, and I am your well-wisher, and I know from Allah what you do not know.
Here Noah tells them three things about himself. First and foremost, his job as a messenger was to communicate the messages of his Lord to them. The word “messages” (risālāt) is mentioned in the plural form, which shows that they were many. Besides the messages of monotheism and the afterlife [mentioned in verse ], his mission included other messages that God had ordered him to deliver. After all, Noah was not only a prophet, but was among the Resolute Messengers (ūlū al-ʿazm), meaning that he had a scripture with a divine code of law (shariah).
Second, he told them about his good-will for them. He admonished them by giving them good news to encourage them to obey their Lord, and warning them to prevent them from arrogant rejection and disobedience against His worship. He did so based on what God had taught him about the beginning and the end of creation, and the divine laws and customs which govern the world. That is why he added as a third point that he knows from God what they know not. This refers to the events on the Day of Resurrection, the rewards and punishments that await the people, how obedience leads to God’s satisfaction and bliss, and how disobedience results in God’s dissatisfaction and vengeance.
Therefore, the three sentences mentioned in this verse—I communicate to you…, and I am your well-wisher, and I know…—serve the same purpose and build on one another. However, some exegetes have said that the first two sentences are two attributes for Noah, and the third one functions as a ḥāl (circumstantial qualifier, participial phrase), describing the condition of the subject in: I am your well-wisher.
أَ وَ عَجِبْتُمْ أَنْ جاءَكُمْ ذِكْرٌ مِنْ رَبِّكُمْ عَلى رَجُلٍ مِنْكُمْ لِيُنْذِرَكُمْ وَ لِتَتَّقُوا وَ لَعَلَّكُمْ تُرْحَمُونَ ٦٣
(7:63) Do you consider it odd that a reminder from your Lord should come to you through a man from among yourselves, to warn you so that you may be Godwary and so that you may haply (laʿallakum) receive His mercy?”
This is a rhetorical question that implies a criticism. He repudiates them for doubting his claim to messengership and his call to the religion of truth. “Reminder” (dhikr) here means “that by which God is remembered,” which refers to the divine teachings that were revealed to him. The verse involves an implied omission where it says: from your Lord. The implied meaning is: “A reminder which is (kāʾin) from your Lord.”
… to warn you so that you may be Godwary and so that you may receive His mercy: These phrases show the intended purpose of the verb “should come” (jāʾakum). The meaning is: “A reminder has come from your Lord so that the messenger may warn you, so that you become Godwary, and so that God’s mercy may hopefully embrace you.” Even though taqwá (Godwariness, self-restraint) leads to salvation, it is not a complete cause of it. That is why the verse uses the word laʿalla (maybe, perhaps, haply). This verse presents a brief summary of Noah’s sublime divine teachings.
فَكَذَّبُوهُ فَأَنْجَيْناهُ وَ الَّذِينَ مَعَهُ فِي الْفُلْكِ وَ أَغْرَقْنَا الَّذِينَ كَذَّبُوا بِآياتِنا إِنَّهُمْ كانُوا قَوْماً عَمِينَ ٦٤
(7:64) But they denied him. So We delivered him and those who were with him in the ark (al-fulk), and We drowned those who denied Our signs. Indeed they were a blind lot (ʿamīn).
Fulk is synonymous with safīnah (ship, boat, vessel). According to al-Rāghib, it is used equally for singular and plural. According to al-Ṣiḥāḥ, it is both masculine and feminine. ʿAmīn is an adjective used for qawm (lot, people, folk). It is the plural of ʿamī, which is a ṣifah mushabbahah derived from the root ʿamiya yaʿmá ʿaman (to be blind). It is said that ʿamī is similar in meaning to aʿmá (blind), with the difference that the former is specifically used for the lack of insight [of the heart] while the latter is specifically used for the lack of sight [of the eye]. The rest of the verse should be clear.
The word qad also implies emphasis because it shows the occurrence of the event. (Trans.) ↩︎
The meaning would be: “I am your well-wisher while I know…” (Trans.) ↩︎
That is, it can be used with adjectives and verbs in either the masculine or the feminine form. (Trans.) ↩︎
Ṣifah mushabbahah (also called ṣifah mushbihah) is an adjective that is similar to an active participle. It serves as an adjective, and indicates the establishment, subsistence, and strength of a quality in the subject. (Trans.) ↩︎