Sūrat Nūḥ is the seventy-first surah of the Quran with 28 ayat. It is about the Islamic prophet Nūḥ and his complaint about his people rejecting all warning Allah gave them through Nuh. Nuh's themes include: belief in Allah, signs of Allah, and punishment of denying Allah's message.
Summary
In Nuh, the seventy-first surah, the Quran refers to Nuh’s prophethood in snippets. Nuh is a messenger of Allah. When Nuh realizes the messages are not accepted by the community, he supplicated to Allah, who planned to flood the community of Nuh at a specified time. Allah commanded Nuh to warn the people of the flood. Allah brings forth the water from the skies to prove Nuh’s message to be accurate. In the Quran, the flood is a symbolization of the mercy of Allah to the believers. Allah gives the world a new beginning. The disbelievers disbelieved Allah's message and messenger Nuh so they were drowned. Because his people are unable to grasp the idea of the existence of one God, the lives of Muhammad and Nuh are parallel to each other for the time of the revelation of this surah. The surah was used to increase the faith of the believers; it shows that Nuh before Muhammad had difficulties in dealing with the disbelievers of his time.
Exegesis
Q71:1-4 Noah receives message from God
Verses 1–4 discuss the message Nuh received from God to share with his community, to serve God.
In Verses 5–20, Nuh informs Allah that his people are not accepting his message. Nuh tries to make clear to the people that all of the Earth, the Sun, the Moon are signs of God's existence.
In Verses 21–24, Nuh asks Allah to rid the world of the evildoers because they refused to abandon their idols and encourage others to do the same.
Q71:26-28 disbelievers all drowned
In Verses 26–28, the disbelievers were all drowned and sent to hell. Nuh asks Allah to forgive the believers and to destroy the disbelievers because their faith will lead many astray.
The surah is entirely Meccan meaning it was revealed while Muhammad was trying to create a Muslim community in Mecca. According to the Tanzil version, it was the seventy-first surah revealed. It was revealed after the sixteenth surah, An-Nahl and before the fourteenth Ibrahim. According to Theodor Nöldeke, Nūḥ was the fifty-third surah to be revealed. It was revealed after the thirty-seventh surah Saaffaat, and before the seventy-sixth surah, Insaan or Dahr.
