571 Page Notes

71 Surah Nuh (continued)

Page 571 - Related Hadith/Sunnah

Translation of the meaning by Sahih International.

Page 571 - Related Hadiths and Sunnah

Page 571 of the Quran continues and concludes Surah Nuh (Chapter 71), verses 11 through 28.

This page serves as a brilliant but tragic historical climax. It begins with the Prophet Nuh (Noah) showing his people the beautiful physical design of the universe—the layered heavens, the illuminating moon, and the scorching sun—as living evidence of God’s grace. When the people stubbornly reject this, the Surah exposes the exact cultural mechanism that doomed them: the worship of five specific, historically famous idols. The page culminates with Nuh’s historic, final prayer for justice, triggering the legendary global deluge.

The Sunnah and canonical Hadith literature provide foundational historical commentary for this section, explicitly mapping how these primitive idols originated and how they eventually re-manifested in pre-Islamic Arabia.

1. Verses 11–16: The Signs of the Cosmos and Natural Wealth

"He will send [rain from] the sky upon you in [abundance] and give you increase in wealth and children and provide for you gardens and provide for you rivers... See you not how Allah has created the seven heavens in layers, and made the moon therein a reflected light, and made the sun a burning lamp?" (Quran 71:11-16)

The Correlation Between Faith and Environmental Prosperity

Expanding directly on the spiritual-economic blueprint established on the previous page, Nuh details how individual and communal repentance translates into massive agricultural and biological fruitfulness.

The Sunnah operationalizes these exact verses during environmental crises. Whenever regional droughts occurred, the Prophet ﷺ would mimic this exact Quranic sequence during the Istisqa (Rain-Seeking) prayer—focusing strictly on humble repentance to restore ecological balance.

Ibn Abbas (ra) narrated that the Prophet ﷺ would go out to perform the rain prayer in absolute humility, wearing simple garments, and his entire sermon would center on making Istighfar (seeking forgiveness) and reciting the verses of Surah Nuh to unlock the sky's rain.

Source: Sunan at-Tirmidhi (Hadith 558) and Sunan Abi Dawud.

2. Verse 23: The Historic Origin of the Five Famous Idols

"And they said, 'Never leave your gods and never leave Wadd or Suwa' or Yaghuth and Ya'uq and Nasr.'" (Quran 71:23)

How Pious Men Became Static Idols

This is arguably the most historically critical verse on the page. The Quran explicitly names the five major idols of Nuh's era: Wadd, Suwa', Yaghuth, Ya'uq, and Nasr.

The Sunnah provides a detailed psychological breakdown of how these items originally became idols. They were not alien gods; they were real, historical, deeply beloved Muslim scholars and saints. When they passed away, human grief allowed Satan to introduce an innocent-looking innovation that eventually morphed into full-scale polytheism (Shirk).

Narrated Ibn Abbas (ra) regarding Verse 23: "All the idols which were worshipped by the people of Noah were worshipped by the Arabs later on... These names formerly belonged to some pious men from the people of Noah. When they died, Satan inspired their people to prepare and place statues at the places where they used to sit, and to call those statues by their names.

The people did so, but the statues were not worshipped until those people who initiated them had died and the true origin of the statues had become forgotten, whereupon the later generations began worshipping them."

Source: Sahih al-Bukhari (Hadith 4920).

The Migration of the Idols to Arabia

The Hadith in Sahih al-Bukhari goes on to name the exact Arab tribes that inherited these identical five entities thousands of years later after they were dug up out of the earth:

• Wadd: Became the idol of the tribe of Kalb at Daumat al-Jandal.

• Suwa': Adopted by the tribe of Hudhail.

• Yaghuth: Worshipped by the tribe of Murad near Saba.

• Ya'uq: Kept by the tribe of Hamdan.

• Nasr: Reveled by the tribe of Himyat for the clan of Dhi-al-Kala.

3. Verses 26–28: Nuh’s Final Invocations and His Legacy

"And Noah said, 'My Lord, do not leave upon the earth from among the disbelievers a single inhabitant. Indeed, if You leave them, they will mislead Your servants and not beget except every wicked disbeliever. My Lord, forgive me and my parents and whoever enters my house a believer...'" (Quran 71:26-28)

The Emotional Weight of Nuh's Prayer

Nuh did not make this cataclysmic prayer out of petty anger or a short temper; he endured 950 years of psychological abuse and public mocking beforehand. He realized that their society had reached a genetic and moral dead-end where they were actively conditioning their children to be tyrants.

On the Day of Judgment, Nuh will carry a profound sense of awe regarding the sheer weight of this prayer.

In the famous Hadith of Intercession, when humanity begs Nuh to step forward and speak to Allah on their behalf, Nuh will decline out of intense humility, stating: "My Lord has become angry today as He has never been angry before... and I was already granted a single, definitive prayer of invocation that I chose to use against my own people [resulting in the Flood]. Go to Abraham instead!"

Source: Sahih al-Bukhari (Hadith 7440) and Sahih Muslim.