وَقَدْ أَضَلُّوا كَثِيرًا ۖ وَلَا تَزِدِ الظَّالِمِينَ إِلَّا ضَلَالًا
- The first half: a statement. Noah is reporting what has happened.
- The second half: a prayer. Noah is asking something of his Lord.
That is, the report section turns into a prayer in the middle of a verse. This is the real point of transition in the structure of the sūra; the long prayer of verse 26 is the continuation of a movement that began here.
The verb is plural and its subject is not written openly. There are two readings in the classical commentaries:
| Reading | Subject | Its ground |
|---|---|---|
| The idols | The five names | The nearest plural mentioned is the idols in verse 23. In Arabic the plural of non-rational beings can take a verb in this way. The Qurʾān says elsewhere too that idols "led astray": "My Lord! They have led many of mankind astray" (Ibrāhīm 14/36 — Abraham's prayer) |
| The notables of the people | Those who speak in verse 23 | They are the real agents of the sentence; idols do nothing, the people who put them forward do |
The parallel at Ibrāhīm 14/36 supports the first reading markedly: there too a prophet, addressing his Lord, names the idols as "leading astray". The two prayers are in almost the same construction.
The two readings come to the same place in practice. As the Qurʾān says openly elsewhere, idols have no power of their own ("they cannot even help themselves", al-Aʿrāf 7/192); the act of "leading astray" is ascribed to them with respect to outcome — because they were the occasion of the straying.
The construction is the same as that of verse 6: lā yazidhum … illā. There it was a statement ("my call served only to increase their flight"); here it is a prayer. That is, Noah turns what he has observed into a request. He asks for the continuation of what is in fact happening.
This observation lightens the moral weight of the verse and is important: Noah is not inventing a new punishment; he is asking for the completion of a working he has seen for years.
The first matter: what does "ḍalāl" mean here? In the classical commentaries expressions of this kind are generally explained in two ways:
- Straying as punishment. In the Qurʾān, leading astray most often comes as the result of a person's own choice: "When they deviated, God made their hearts deviate" (al-Ṣaff 61/5); "By it God leads astray none but the transgressors" (al-Baqara 2/26). That is, divine leading astray is not a beginning but a response. What Noah asks for is that this response be given.
- Being abandoned. Some exegetes explain iḍlāl as "withdrawing help, leaving to oneself".
Both explanations are in the classical sources; I do not present one as definitely correct. What they have in common is this: what is requested is not the making bad of a good person.
The second matter: when was this prayer made? This will be taken up in detail below at verse 26. Briefly: elsewhere the Qurʾān records that Noah was informed that "none of your people will believe except those who have already believed" (Hūd 11/36). That is, Noah's prayer comes after a piece of knowledge; not out of anger.
The third matter: is this a prayer to be taken as a model? No — and the Qurʾān itself shows this. When the Prophet wished to pass judgement on those who opposed him, this was said to him: "Nothing of this matter is yours" (Āl ʿImrān 3/128). That is, not every prayer of every messenger produces a general rule. Noah's prayer concerns his own people and his own process.
ظالمين — note the choice of word: not "disbelievers" but "wrongdoers". The root ظ-ل-م is to put a thing outside the place where it should be. In his prayer Noah names them not by an attribute of belief but by an attribute of act. The same word will be repeated in verse 28; the last sentence of the sūra too is about "the wrongdoers".