The story of Nuh and the flood in the Quran
Noah's story scene by scene — the length of his mission, the end of the reprieve, the oven, the son who stayed behind, and Judiyy — read in al-Tafsir al-Muyassar, al-Safi and al-Mizan.
Noah's name occurs in forty-three verses spread over twenty-eight surahs. Surah Hud carries it most often, eight times; the surah named after him uses it only three times. The story itself is told at length in Hud 25-49, in his own voice in Surah Nuh, in a few short verses in Al-Qamar, and in two verses of Al-Ankabut. This article follows it in order of events and, at each hard place, gives the Sunni reading of al-Tafsir al-Muyassar first and then the Shia readings of al-Safi (al-Fayd al-Kashani) and al-Mizan (al-Tabataba'i).
Quotations from the three commentaries are my renderings of the Arabic.
A thousand years minus fifty
And We certainly sent Noah to his people, and he remained among them a thousand years minus fifty years, and the flood seized them while they were wrongdoers.
Al-Muyassar: he stayed among them a thousand years less fifty, calling them to the oneness of God and forbidding them to associate others with Him, and they did not answer him.
Al-Mizan stops at the shape of the number: "A thousand years minus fifty" rather than "nine hundred and fifty" is for emphasis on how long it was, and the verse plainly makes the figure the length of Noah's mission, from his sending to the flood — unlike the present Torah, which makes it his lifetime.
So both read it as the length of the call, not of his life; the verse never gives his age. Counted on the mushaf, "a thousand years" occurs in five verses, and this is the only one in which the span was actually lived: Al-Baqarah 96 is a wish ("One of them wishes that he could be granted life a thousand years"), Al-Hajj 47 and As-Sajdah 5 are a day with God, and Al-Ma'arij 4 is a day of fifty thousand years.
What he promised them
And said, 'Ask forgiveness of your Lord. Indeed, He is ever a Perpetual Forgiver.
He will send [rain from] the sky upon you in [continuing] showers
And give you increase in wealth and children and provide for you gardens and provide for you rivers.
(Nuh 71:10, Nuh 71:11, Nuh 71:12)
Al-Muyassar makes it conditional: if you repent and ask forgiveness, God will send down rain upon you in abundance, increase your wealth and your children, and give you gardens and rivers. Al-Safi adds, with the hedge "it is said", why these gifts in particular: when their call grew long and they persisted, God withheld rain from them for forty years and made their women barren, so he promised them that. They were offered back exactly what they had lost.
The reprieve ends
And it was revealed to Noah that, "No one will believe from your people except those who have already believed, so do not be distressed by what they have been doing.
Al-Mizan draws a rule from the verse: unbelievers are not punished while faith can still be hoped for from them; once unbelief has settled in them as a fixed trait, the word of punishment falls due.
Then Noah prays against his people:
Indeed, if You leave them, they will mislead Your servants and not beget except [every] wicked one and [confirmed] disbeliever.
How could he know they would "not beget except [every] wicked one"? Al-Safi answers with a report from al-Baqir, who was asked exactly that: "Have you not heard God's words to Noah: no one will believe from your people except those who have already believed?" Al-Mizan reaches the same place by the order of the verses: the prayer falls between Hud 36 and the command to build the ship, because knowledge that unbelievers will not believe in future cannot be reached by reason, only by hearing it in revelation. Al-Muyassar places the prayer after he despaired of his people. On this the three agree.
The ship
And We carried him on a [construction of] planks and nails,
The Quran describes it only as planks and nails (dusur, which al-Muyassar glosses as nails that held it together). Al-Safi relays from al-Sadiq that Noah was a carpenter whom God made a prophet, and the first to build a ship that ran on the surface of the water.
The oven
[So it was], until when Our command came and the oven overflowed, We said, "Load upon the ship of each [creature] two mates and your family, except those about whom the word has preceded, and [include] whoever has believed." But none had believed with him, except a few.
Al-Muyassar: water burst out with force from the oven — the place where bread is baked — as a sign that the punishment had come; and those on whom the word had gone before were such as his son and his wife.
Al-Safi locates it, from al-Sadiq: the oven was in the house of a believing old woman, behind the qibla on the right side of the mosque — the mosque of Kufa. Al-Mizan explains the word — the baker's oven, a word Arabic shares with Persian — and adds a second possibility: the phrase may be a figure for the intensity of God's anger, like the Arab saying "the oven grew hot" for a battle at its fiercest.
So all three take it as a bread oven from which water rose, and all three name the son and the wife as the ones excepted. Al-Safi adds a location by report; al-Mizan adds the figurative reading. For "none had believed with him, except a few", al-Muyassar gives no number; al-Safi relays from al-Sadiq that eight of his people believed with him.
The son
And it sailed with them through waves like mountains, and Noah called to his son who was apart [from them], "O my son, come aboard with us and be not with the disbelievers."
[But] he said, "I will take refuge on a mountain to protect me from the water." [Noah] said, "There is no protector today from the decree of Allah, except for whom He gives mercy." And the waves came between them, and he was among the drowned.
Then Noah asks about him:
And Noah called to his Lord and said, "My Lord, indeed my son is of my family; and indeed, Your promise is true; and You are the most just of judges!"
He said, "O Noah, indeed he is not of your family; indeed, he is [one whose] work was other than righteous, so ask Me not for that about which you have no knowledge. Indeed, I advise you, lest you be among the ignorant."
Note that the bracket in the translation of verse 46 is already an interpretation: the Arabic says, word for word, "indeed he is a deed not righteous".
Where they agree
All three read "he is not of your family" the same way: not of the family God had promised to save. Al-Muyassar: your son who perished is not of your family whom I promised to rescue, because of his unbelief and his unrighteous deeds. Al-Safi: not of the family I promised to save, because he is not on your religion. Al-Mizan: the family meant in "and your family, except those about whom the word has preceded" is the righteous family, and he was not righteous — even though he was his son and of his household in the sense of belonging to him. Al-Safi and al-Mizan both also record the reading 'amila ghayra salih, "he did what was not righteous", with the verb in place of the noun.
Where they differ
Was he Noah's son by birth? Al-Muyassar says "your son who perished"; al-Mizan says "even though he was his son". Al-Safi carries two reports side by side. The first, from al-Sadiq: he was not his son, only his wife's son, reading the pronoun as hers, and al-Safi notes that Ali, al-Baqir and al-Sadiq read it that way. The second, from al-Rida, on those who read "he is a deed not righteous": by no means — he was his son, but when he disobeyed God, God disowned him from his father. Al-Mizan names the stepson view and does not take it: there is no evidence for it in the wording, and it does not fit the reason given, "he is a deed not righteous" — had that been the point, the natural thing to say would have been "he is the woman's son."
The verses themselves call him "his son" (42) and "my son" (45); what verse 46 denies is that he is "of your family".
Judiyy
And it was said, "O earth, swallow your water, and O sky, withhold [your rain]." And the water subsided, and the matter was accomplished, and the ship came to rest on the [mountain of] Judiyy. And it was said, "Away with the wrongdoing people."
Al-Safi relays a remark on the form of the verse: the reports are put in the passive to honour the doer — He is fixed in Himself and needs no mention. Al-Mizan: a call issued from the court of majesty whose speaker is not named, to honour Him. On that the two agree. They differ on Judiyy: al-Muyassar calls it the mountain of Judiyy without placing it; al-Safi says a mountain at Mosul; al-Mizan says the word means any mountain or hard ground, and only then, with "it is said", a mountain near Mosul in the range that ends in Armenia, called Ararat.
What the verses do not say
- They name neither the son nor the wife; "Kan'an" is al-Safi's gloss.
- They give no number for those aboard, only "a few".
- They give neither Noah's age, nor the ship's size, nor where the oven stood.
- They never say the son was not his son.
Counted on the mushaf
- Noah's name: forty-three verses in twenty-eight surahs; eight in Hud, three in Surah Nuh.
- al-tufan, "the flood": twice in the whole Quran — here and Al-A'raf 133, among the plagues on Pharaoh's people.
- al-Judiyy: once, Hud 44.
- "and the oven overflowed": twice, Hud 40 and Al-Mu'minun 27.
- "do not address Me concerning those who have wronged; indeed, they are [to be] drowned": twice, Hud 37 and Al-Mu'minun 27.
- al-safina as the name of Noah's ship: once, Al-Ankabut 15; everywhere else in his story it is al-fulk.
- "A thousand years": five verses — Al-Baqarah 96, Al-Hajj 47, Al-Ankabut 14, As-Sajdah 5, Al-Ma'arij 4.
Sources
- al-Tafsir al-Muyassar — King Fahd Complex for the Printing of the Holy Quran.
- Tafsir al-Safi — al-Fayd al-Kashani.
- al-Mizan fi Tafsir al-Quran — al-Sayyid Muhammad Husayn al-Tabataba'i.
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