Nūḥ 71:7

Wa innī kullamā daʿawtuhum li-taghfira lahum jaʿalū aṣābiʿahum fī ādhānihim wa'staghshaw thiyābahum wa aṣarrū wa'stakbarū'stikbārā

"Every time I called them, so that You might forgive them, they put their fingers in their ears, wrapped themselves in their garments, persisted, and grew proud beyond all pride."

This is the densest verse in the sūra. In a single sentence four separate acts of defence are enumerated; two bodily, two mental.

كلما conveys repetition: every time, whenever. That is, what is described is not an event but a settled reflex. Noah does not call once and receive this response once; an automatic link has been established between call and response.

This is the ground for the change of method that will be described in the next two verses: one who cannot break a fixed response changes his method.

This parenthetical clause is easily missed but it is the moral centre of the verse.

Noah reminds his Lord of the purpose of his call: I called them so that You would forgive them. That is, the call was not an attempt to establish superiority, to gather a following, to gain something; it was a work in their favour.

Note: the verb is second person singular — li-taghfira, "so that You might forgive". Noah ascribes the work of forgiving neither to himself nor to something the people would do afterwards, but directly to God. Forgiving is not in the messenger's hands; only calling is in his hands.

The analysis of the root gh-f-r was made in Sūrat al-Naṣr (110/3): to cover, to close over; the Turkish miğfer ("helmet") is a survival of the same root. I rely on the observation made there: forgiveness is not counting what happened as not having happened, but covering it.

This root returns three times in the sūra and each time in a different position:

So forgiveness is first hoped for on another's behalf, then others are taught to ask for it, and last of all the person asks for himself. The sūra closes on that sequence.

Now let us look at the four acts one by one. The order itself sets up a line of ascent.

The most primitive, the most bodily defence. The gesture children make.

اصبع (iṣbaʿ / uṣbuʿ), finger. Its plural is aṣābiʿ. أذن (udhun), ear; its plural is ādhān. From this root comes idhn (permission) — according to the lexicographers the link is that to give permission is to "lend an ear".

The verb is جعل: they put, they made. It does not say "they closed" or "they stopped up"; it says they put. The neutrality of the verb makes the deliberateness of the act still clearer: this is not a flinch but a placing.

This gesture occurs once more in the Qurʾān, in a very familiar scene. At al-Baqara 2/19, in the second likeness of the hypocrites: people caught in a downpour bursting from the sky put their fingers in their ears against the thunderclaps, in fear of death. In the discussion of al-Baqara this observation was made about that gesture: "This act, done to protect against the thunder, is useless — shutting out the sound does not stop the lightning. Not hearing the warning does not remove the danger warned of."

That observation holds exactly here, but there is a difference and the difference matters:

The people in al-Baqara stop their ears in the midst of the punishment; Noah's people stop theirs before the punishment, so as not to hear the warning. The second is heavier, because what is shut out is not the sound of the danger but the sound of the way out of it.

And the exact opposite of this gesture is in another sūra where the same event is narrated. Sūrat al-Ḥāqqa mentions the flood in two verses and ties it thus: "that We might make it a reminder for you and that a retaining ear might retain it" (al-Ḥāqqa 69/12). In the discussion of al-Ḥāqqa the phrase udhunun wāʿiya (a retaining ear) was dwelt on and this observation was made: everyone has the organ, not everyone has the function.

When the two verses are set side by side the two ends of the story of Noah become visible: inside the story there are ears stopped with fingers, and at the story's target a retaining ear. The same event is narrated between two ears, one closing and one opening.

And I record this as an observation — as my own reading: the scene of the likeness in al-Baqara is a downpour, and what comes upon Noah's people is likewise water. The picture set up as a comparison in al-Baqara stands here in its realised form.

The second act is an extension of the first. The ear was not enough; the whole body has been covered.

Root غ-ش-ي. The analysis of this root was made in Sūrat al-Ghāshiya (88/1) and in the discussion of al-Shams (91/4); I do not repeat the observations made there. In summary: the concrete sense of the root is to cover something over, to wrap it, to come over it and envelop it; ghishāwa is the veil over the eye (al-Baqara 2/7).

The verb here is in Form X: istaghshā. In Arabic this form conveys "to seek" or "to do for oneself". So istaghshaw thiyābahum does not mean "their garments covered them"; it means "they made their garments a covering for themselves". The verb is a covering performed by the subject's own hand.

In the classical commentaries this expression is seen to be explained in two ways, and both fit the language:

The first: to cover the face. To pull the garment over the head and cover the face — both so as not to see and so as not to be recognised. Not to see Noah, and not to appear to him.

The second: to wrap the head so as to cover the ears too. This reading is taken as a continuation of the first act: when the finger is not enough, cloth.

A third explanation is also transmitted: the covering is the symbolic expression of shame or of turning away in obstinacy. This is a reading drawn not from the wording of the word but from the context.

Another use of the same root within the Qurʾān illuminates this verse: at Hūd 11/5, of those who wish to hide from the Prophet, the expression "they wrap themselves in their garments" (yastaghshūna thiyābahum) occurs — almost exactly the same construction. That is, the Qurʾān records this gesture not as an oddity peculiar to Noah's people but as a recurring human behaviour.

ثياب, root ث-و-ب: to return. Thawb (garment), thawāb (recompense), mathāba (a place returned to) are all from this root. The explanation the lexicographers give: cloth took this name because in being woven the thread has "returned" to its first state. I give this explanation as a transmitted report.

With the third act the body is left behind and the mind is entered.

Root ص-ر-ر. Its concrete sense: to tie, to knot tightly. Ṣurra means a money purse tied at the mouth. From the same root come ṣarīr (a creak, the sound of friction) and ṣarṣar (a howling, freezing wind — Fuṣṣilat 41/16, al-Qamar 54/19).

إصرار, in Form IV: to bind oneself to a course, not to turn back from it, to persist in it. The Turkish "ısrar" ("insistence") is directly this word.

The root's picture of "tying a purse" describes the word very well: the one who persists has put his decision into a purse and tied its mouth. Nothing new gets in.

The Qurʾān uses this word in one other place and there its sense becomes clear: "and they do not knowingly persist in what they have done" (Āl ʿImrān 3/135). That is, iṣrār is not the fault itself but the stance taken after the fault. A fault is an event; persistence is a position.

Note: This verb (aṣarrū, ص-ر-ر) and the asrartu to come in verse 9 (أسررت, س-ر-ر — to conceal) are not from the same root. The resemblance in sound is close and they are confused; I record the distinction here because they do two different works in two different places of the sūra.

The fourth and last act. The top of the series.

Root ك-ب-ر, in Form X. The analysis of this pattern was made at al-Baqara 2/34 — in the discussion of Iblīs's refusal to prostrate. What was established there was this: Form X conveys "to seek a thing or to reckon it so"; therefore istikbār is not being great but reckoning oneself great; and pride is born of a comparison.

I do not repeat that analysis. Two things need adding here:

First: the cognate accusative. The verse does not say wa'stakbarū and leave it; it adds after it the verbal noun from the same root: istikbārā. In Arabic the coming of a verb's own verbal noun after the verb is called the cognate accusative and its function is emphasis: "they grew proud — and how they grew proud."

English has no exact counterpart; the nearest is an intensifying repetition — "they grew proud, and how proud they grew". This pattern of the language conveys not the degree of the verb but its certainty and its force.

This construction is a marked feature of this sūra. It occurs in five places:

Five cognate accusatives in a sūra of twenty-eight verses is above the ordinary. Throughout the language of the sūra there is an emphasis on force and certainty; both in the people's resistance and in God's act. I record this as an observation.

Second: the logic of the series. The four acts mount one upon another and draw an ascent:

1. The finger — block the sound (momentary, bodily, from outside) 2. The garment — cut off all contact (comprehensive, still bodily) 3. Persistence — lock the decision (mental, from inside) 4. Pride — fix the position (at the level of identity)

As one goes from the bottom upward, the act becomes more lasting, more inward and less reversible. The first two can be done in a moment and then dropped; the last two are a state of character.

And that the series closes with pride is no accident. The other three are the applications of pride: the man who counts himself superior does not listen, does not make contact, does not reconsider his opinion. By putting the cause last, the sūra explains the preceding three.

These four acts are like a complete inventory of closing oneself to a piece of knowledge, and none of them has grown old. Their present-day counterparts differ technically and are identical in structure: silencing the source, narrowing the field of contact, repeating one's position, and turning the discussion into a matter of status.

The distinguishing side of the verse is that it names these not as ignorance but as defence. The person who puts his finger in his ear knows there is a sound there. The one who covers himself knows there is someone before him. The one who persists knows there is a contrary view. All four show not the absence of the knowledge but that it is not wanted.

This distinction is the diagnosis of the whole sūra and it coincides with the Qurʾān's general diagnosis: the matter is not not-knowing but covering what is known (treated in the discussion of al-Baqara 2/6).