وَلَقَدْ نَادَىٰنَا نُوحٌ فَلَنِعْمَ ٱلْمُجِيبُونَ · وَنَجَّيْنَٰهُ وَأَهْلَهُۥ مِنَ ٱلْكَرْبِ ٱلْعَظِيمِ · وَجَعَلْنَا ذُرِّيَّتَهُۥ هُمُ ٱلْبَاقِينَ · وَتَرَكْنَا عَلَيْهِ فِى ٱلْءَاخِرِينَ · سَلَٰمٌ عَلَىٰ نُوحٍ فِى ٱلْعَٰلَمِينَ · إِنَّا كَذَٰلِكَ نَجْزِى ٱلْمُحْسِنِينَ · إِنَّهُۥ مِنْ عِبَادِنَا ٱلْمُؤْمِنِينَ · ثُمَّ أَغْرَقْنَا ٱلْءَاخَرِينَ
Wa laqad nādānā Nūḥun fa-la-niʿma'l-mujībūn · Wa najjaynāhu wa ahlahu mina'l-karbi'l-ʿaẓīm · Wa jaʿalnā dhurriyyatahu humu'l-bāqīn · Wa taraknā ʿalayhi fi'l-ākhirīn · Salāmun ʿalā Nūḥin fi'l-ʿālamīn · Innā kadhālika najzi'l-muḥsinīn · Innahu min ʿibādina'l-muʾminīn · Thumma aghraqna'l-ākharīn
"And Noah called upon Us — and how excellent are We as answerers. We saved him and his household from the great distress. We made his progeny the ones who remained. And We left upon him, among those who came after: 'Peace be upon Noah among all the worlds.' Thus do We requite those who do good. He was one of Our believing servants. Then We drowned the others."
Eight verses, and within them not a full account — a summary. What Noah said to his people, how long he waited, the building of the ark, the flood — none of it is recounted. What is recounted is only this: he called, he was saved, his line continued, his name remained.
This is the method the sūra keeps to in its sequence of prophets, and it is worth recording: the accounts are given not as story but as outcome. Comparing this with Sūrat Nūḥ, treated in Nūḥ, makes it clear: there, for twenty-eight verses, Noah's case and his call are recounted; here the case itself is wholly absent, and only its result is present.
Nādā — root ن-د-و/ن-د-ي: to call to one who is far off. The root was treated at al-Qalam 68/48 (idh nādā wa huwa makẓūm — of Jonah).
And the picture of the word is worth noting: nidāʾ is a call made from a distance. One does not make nidāʾ to someone near; with him one makes najwā (a whisper).
The same verb, the opposite direction. Noah calls, Abraham is called. I record this as an observation.
And what he said is not stated. Elsewhere the Qurʾān states it: fa-daʿā rabbahu annī maghlūbun fa'ntaṣir (al-Qamar 54/10) — treated in al-Qamar. Here the content is not given; only the act and its answer.
Niʿma — in Arabic the verb of praise (fiʿl al-madḥ). Its opposite is biʾsa (how evil). The mould is used to praise a thing in the highest degree.
A point of word order: fa-la-niʿma — with fāʾ and lām at its head. The grammarians count this lām as the answer to an elided oath. At the head of the sentence, that is, there is an unstated oath: "By God, how excellent are We as answerers."
Mujīb — root ج-و-ب: to answer, to respond. The concrete sense of the root is "to cut through, to cleave": jāba'l-arḍa — he cleft the ground, he traversed it. In the Qurʾān: wa Thamūda'lladhīna jābū'ṣ-ṣakhra bi'l-wād (al-Fajr 89/9) — "and Thamūd, who hollowed the rocks in the valley" — treated in al-Fajr.
The link the lexicographers make: an answer is what cleaves the obstacle standing before a question. The word goes out and its response comes back. I give this link as a transmission from the lexicographers.
And the plural is worth noting: al-mujībūn — "the answerers". A plural of majesty. The same form will be repeated in the sūra: innā, jaʿalnā, taraknā.
Karb — root ك-ر-ب. The original sense the lexicographers give: a distress that narrows a person's breast and cuts off his breath. Kurba — a trouble; makrūb — one in distress. From the same root karaba also means "it drew near"; the lexicographers make the link thus: distress is what draws near and clings to a person.
| Verse | Who | Expression |
|---|---|---|
| 76 | Noah and his household | wa najjaynāhu wa ahlahu mina'l-karbi'l-ʿaẓīm |
| 115 | Moses, Aaron and their people | wa najjaynāhumā wa qawmahumā mina'l-karbi'l-ʿaẓīm |
The same construction, the same verb (najjaynā), two different deliverances. And both are deliverances from water: the one from the flood, the other from the sea. Whether the text sets up this link is not said; the sharing of the words is a datum.
Najjaynā — root ن-ج-و, Form II: to save. The concrete sense of the root is "high ground": najwa — a rise one climbs to be safe from a flood. "To save", then, is really "to raise up high". And in the context of the flood this picture works directly.
Dhurriyya — root ذ-ر-ر or ذ-ر-و. Two derivations are transmitted: (a) from ذ-ر-ر — a mote, a small particle; (b) from ذ-ر-و — to scatter, to spread. Both arrive at the picture of "small particles spread abroad". I issue no firm etymological ruling.
A point of word order: jaʿalnā dhurriyyatahu hum al-bāqīn — the pronoun hum comes between. This is the ḍamīr al-faṣl and it sets up ḥaṣr (restriction): "the ones who remain are only his progeny".
And this is information the text gives; its detail is not given. In the classical commentaries it is said, on the basis of this verse, that the whole of humanity comes from Noah's line. The verse does not say this openly; it says "the ones who remained are his progeny". I record this much and write no more.
This sentence occurs four times in the sūra: 78 (Noah), 108 (Abraham), 119 (Moses-Aaron — ʿalayhimā), 129 (Elijah). It was given in a table in the section on the structure.
And there is an ellipsis in the sentence: taraknā ʿalayhi — "We left upon him". What was left is not said. The verb has no object.
| Completion | Sense |
|---|---|
| thanāʾan ḥasanan — a good remembrance | "We left him a good name among those who came after" |
| dhikran — a memory | "We left a memory of him" |
| The next verse itself | What was left is verse 79: the sentence salāmun ʿalā Nūḥ |
The third is worth noting and is the closest to the text: the seventy-ninth verse is directly a sentence of peace and stands like a quoted utterance. What "We left", then, may be that very sentence — the word that remained on people's tongues.
I record this as a view and impose no preference; but that all three moulds (78-79, 108-109, 129-130) come in the same order gives this reading a ground.
Al-ākhirīn — root أ-خ-ر: to come after. "Those who come after." And note: in the seventy-ninth verse al-ʿālamīn (the worlds) occurs, and in the eighty-second al-ākharīn (the others) will occur. The three words resemble one another but are three distinct things:
| Word | Root | Sense | Verse |
|---|---|---|---|
| ٱلْءَاخِرِين | أ-خ-ر | Those who come after | 78 |
| ٱلْعَٰلَمِين | ع-ل-م | The worlds | 79 |
| ٱلْءَاخَرِين | أ-خ-ر | The others (the rest) | 82 |
The two words in verses seventy-eight and eighty-two are from the same root and are distinguished by a single vowel (al-ākhirīn / al-ākharīn). This is a fact of the same kind as the mundhirīn / mundharīn pair in verses seventy-two and seventy-three, and it is countable.
| Verse | The sentence of peace | Is there an addition |
|---|---|---|
| 79 | salāmun ʿalā Nūḥin fi'l-ʿālamīn | Yes — "among all the worlds" |
| 109 | salāmun ʿalā Ibrāhīm | No |
| 120 | salāmun ʿalā Mūsā wa Hārūn | No |
| 130 | salāmun ʿalā Il Yāsīn | No |
| 181 | wa salāmun ʿala'l-mursalīn | No |
An adverbial phrase is added only to the peace given to Noah: fi'l-ʿālamīn. This is a fact that can be verified from the text.
I record this as my own reading, and it is not binding: that the addition falls in the first salutation of the sequence is striking. The first peace is given with the widest extent, and those that follow are set upon it. Moreover the seventy-seventh verse had said that Noah's progeny are the ones who remain — the adverb ʿālamīn accords with this: a name remembered among everyone, in a world in which everyone remains within his line. This is an explanation, not a ruling.
Salām — root س-ل-م. The root was analysed in al-Baqara, Qāf, al-Wāqiʿa (56/91 — salāmun laka min aṣḥābi'l-yamīn) and al-Ḥujurāt. The basic note there: the original sense of the root is "wholeness, soundness, freedom from defect". To give peace is to wish wholeness to the other.
And salām comes indefinite: salāmun, not al-salāmu. In Arabic the indefinite is common in sentences of prayer and announces generality (ʿumūm): "peace of every kind".
A point of word order and my own reading: the sentence is a nominal sentence and has no verb. In Arabic a nominal sentence announces continuance and fixity. Not "let there be peace upon Noah" but "there is peace upon Noah" — not a wish but a statement of a state. And this is consistent with the verb "We left" in the seventy-eighth verse: what was left was left in order to last.
This sentence occurs five times in the sūra: 80, 105, 110 (without innā), 121, 131. It was given in a table in the section on the structure.
Najzī — root ج-ز-ي: to requite, to pay what is equal. The same field was treated in the thirty-ninth verse (wa mā tujzawna illā mā kuntum taʿmalūn) and in the thirty-fourth (nafʿalu bi'l-mujrimīn).
Muḥsin — root ح-س-ن, the active participle of Form IV. The root was treated at al-Dhāriyāt 51/16 (innahum kānū qabla dhālika muḥsinīn) and at al-Raḥmān 55/60 (hal jazāʾu'l-iḥsāni illa'l-iḥsān). I rely on those treatments.
The definition there holds here too: iḥsān is more than "doing good" — to do a thing beautifully, completely and with more than is due. In the root there is ḥusn (beauty).
And the sentence in al-Raḥmān gives the logic of this mould: hal jazāʾu'l-iḥsāni illa'l-iḥsān — "is the requital of iḥsān anything but iḥsān?" The requital, that is, is of the same kind as the act.
I record this as my own reading: this is why the closing mould of the sequence says not najzi'l-muʾminīn or najzi'l-muttaqīn but najzi'l-muḥsinīn. The subject of the mould is not belief but the doing of the work well. And the next verse states the belief separately: innahu min ʿibādina'l-muʾminīn. Two verses record two different things: the work he did and the place where he stands.
This sentence occurs three times in the singular in the sūra (81, 111, 132) and once in the dual (122 — innahumā).
And the construct is worth noting: ʿibādinā — "Our servants". In the fortieth verse it was said ʿibāda'llāh ("God's servants"). The two constructs say the same thing, but the one is first person and the other third. And the closing mould of the sequence prefers the first person — because the whole mould is built in the first person (taraknā, innā, najzī).
Al-muʾminīn — root أ-م-ن: to be safe, to give security. The root was analysed in al-Baqara.
And a point of word order: the sentence is not innahu muʾminun but innahu min ʿibādina'l-muʾminīn. The attribute is not given directly; the person is placed in a group. In the fifty-second verse the qarīn's speech had the same structure: a-innaka la-mina'l-muṣaddiqīn. The sūra prefers to name persons not singly but by the group they belong to. This is an observation about the language.
Aghraqnā — root غ-ر-ق, Form IV: to drown. The root had occurred at al-Nāziʿāt 79/1 (wa'n-nāziʿāti gharqā) — there as a verbal noun and in a different work.
And the point of word order is very marked — I record it as my own reading: the sentence of punishment has been set behind the closing mould. The order is this: deliverance (76) → progeny (77) → remembrance (78) → peace (79) → requital (80) → faith (81) → then punishment (82).
The destruction comes, that is, not in the middle of the account but at its end and as an appendix. And the particle thumma pushes it further away still: "then". The weight of the telling is on the side of those saved; the side that drowned is passed over in one sentence.
And the same structure will be repeated in the Lot section: thumma dammarna'l-ākharīn (136) — the same particle, the same word (al-ākharīn), the same position. This parallel between the two sections is countable from the text.