Nuh نُوح

In review — pending scholar verification

The first messenger of Allah after Adam in Islam — preached for 950 years, built the Ark at divine command, and was saved with the believers from a global flood that destroyed his disbelieving people.

Overview

Nuh (Arabic: نُوح; English: Noah) is one of the five great Ulū al-ʿAzm messengers in Islam, alongside Ibrahim, Musa, Isa, and the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ. He was the first messenger sent to a people in disbelief — as identified in the Hadith of Intercession (Sahih al-Bukhari 4476), where humanity will go to him saying: "You are the first messenger Allah sent to the people of the earth."

Nuh was sent to the people of his community when polytheism had taken hold through the veneration of departed righteous figures named Wadd, Suwāʿ, Yaghūth, Yaʿūq, and Nasr (Surah Nuh 71:23). He preached Tawhid for nine hundred and fifty years (Surah Al-Ankabut 29:14) — the longest stretch of any prophetic mission. When the disbelievers persisted, Allah commanded Nuh to build an Ark (al-Fulk, Surah Hud 11:37–38) and gather his family and the believers and pairs of every kind of animal. A great flood was sent. The disbelievers — including Nuh's own son and his wife — were drowned; Nuh and his believing companions were saved. The Ark settled on Mount Judi (Surah Hud 11:44).

Surah 71 of the Quran is named after him. Twenty-eight other surahs reference him in shorter passages. Through his three surviving sons — Sām (Shem), Hām (Ham), and Yāfith (Japheth) — all of present humanity is descended; for this reason classical scholars call Nuh "the second Adam" (al-Tirmidhi 3231, graded Hasan).

Etymology and meaning

The name Nūḥ (Hebrew: Noaḥ) is generally explained from the Semitic root n-w-ḥ conveying "rest, repose". Al-Tabari and Ibn Kathir both note classical reports linking the name to Nuh's long supplication for his people, or — alternatively — to his being a comfort and rest for those who believed alongside him.

Mission to his people

The Quran preserves the texture of Nuh's long preaching: he called day and night, openly and privately (Surah Nuh 71:5–9), reasoned, threatened, and consoled. He warned against shirk and described the natural signs of Allah's creation — the heavens above, the human progression from a sperm-drop, the earth as a spread (Surah Nuh 71:13–20). The people responded by ridiculing him, blocking their ears, and growing in arrogance. Surah Hud 11:32 records their challenge: "O Nuh, you have already disputed with us and made much disputation; bring us what you threaten us with, if you are of the truthful."

After centuries of preaching, Nuh's prayer became one of last resort:

"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 will not breed except wicked, ungrateful [progeny]. My Lord, forgive me and my parents and whoever enters my house a believer and the believing men and the believing women. And do not increase the wrongdoers in anything but ruin." — Surah Nuh 71:26–28

The Ark and the Flood

Allah commanded Nuh to build the Ark "under Our eyes and by Our inspiration" (Surah Hud 11:37). The disbelievers mocked him as he built; he replied: "If you ridicule us, we will ridicule you just as you ridicule. You will know to whom comes a punishment that disgraces him and upon whom a lasting punishment descends" (Surah Hud 11:38–39). When the appointed sign came — water gushed from the oven (tannūr) — Nuh boarded with his family, the believers, and pairs of every species. The earth was inundated; the waves rose like mountains.

Nuh's son, who had remained on a mountain thinking it would protect him, refused his father's call to board: "I will take refuge on a mountain to protect me from the water." [Nuh] said: There is no protector today from the decree of Allah, except for whom He gives mercy. And the waves came between them, and he was among the drowned" (Surah Hud 11:43). Nuh appealed to Allah on his son's behalf, but was told: "O Nuh, indeed he is not of your family; indeed, he is [an embodiment of] unrighteous conduct" (Surah Hud 11:46). The lesson — that prophetic relation by blood does not save when faith is absent — recurs in the case of Lut's wife and Nuh's own wife (both unbelievers, mentioned together in Surah At-Tahrim 66:10).

When the waters subsided, the Ark came to rest on Mount Judi (Surah Hud 11:44). Nuh emerged with greetings of peace from his Lord and a covenant of blessing on him and on those who would believe through his line.

Quranic references

Surah Nuh 71 — the entire surah; Nuh's account of his preaching, his report to Allah, his concluding supplication.
Surah Hud 11:25–49 — the most extended single narrative, including the building of the Ark, the deluge, and the conversation with Nuh's son.
Surah Al-Aʿraf 7:59–64 — earlier Meccan passage on his message and his people's rejection.
Surah Al-Muʾminun 23:23–30 — the Ark, the springs of water, the supplication for safety in landing.
Surah Ash-Shuʿaraʾ 26:105–122 — Nuh as one of a sequence of prophets.
Surah Al-Qamar 54:9–17 — concise account; the Ark "of planks and nails"; the punishment of the deniers as a sign for those who reflect.
Surah Al-Ankabut 29:14–15 — "And We sent Nuh to his people, and he remained among them a thousand years minus fifty years."
Surah Aal Imran 3:33 — Adam, Nuh, and the family of Ibrahim chosen above all the worlds.
Surah At-Tahrim 66:10 — the disbelief of Nuh's wife.
Surah Al-Isra 17:3 — Allah's favour on the descendants of those whom He carried with Nuh.

Hadith

Abu Hurayra reported the Prophet ﷺ said, in the long Hadith of Intercession: "They will go to Nuh and say: O Nuh, you are the first messenger Allah sent to the people of the earth, and Allah has named you a grateful servant — intercede for us with your Lord. He will say: I am not the one for that, and will mention the supplication he had made against his people…" — Sahih al-Bukhari 4476; Sahih Muslim 193

Samurah ibn Jundub reported the Prophet ﷺ said: "Sām is the father of the Arabs, Hām the father of the Ethiopians, and Yāfith the father of the Romans (Byzantines)." — Jami at-Tirmidhi 3231 (graded Hasan by al-Albani)

Imran ibn Husayn reported the Prophet ﷺ said: "None remained from Nuh's descendants other than Sām, Hām, and Yāfith." — Musnad Ahmad 19911 (graded Sahih by Shu'ayb al-Arna'ut)

Significance

Nuh's mission models several aspects of prophethood. The patient endurance of nine and a half centuries of preaching to a society that grew steadily more hostile is the prototype of ṣabr (patient perseverance) in the call to Tawhid. The fate of his son and his wife establishes that the criterion of salvation is faith and action, not lineage — a principle the Quran also applies (in inverse) to Ibrahim's father (Surah At-Tawbah 9:114) and to the wife of Lut.

The Ark and the Flood are referenced as "a sign for the worlds" (Surah Al-ʿAnkabut 29:15). Classical Sunni scholarship affirms the Flood as a real historical event affecting Nuh's people; whether it was truly global or limited to the inhabited region is a question the Quran does not settle definitively, and on which classical commentators take varying positions.

References

The Quran (Sahih International translation): Surahs Aal Imran 3:33; Al-Aʿraf 7:59–64; At-Tawbah 9:70; Hud 11:25–49; Al-Isra 17:3; Al-Muʾminun 23:23–30; Ash-Shuʿaraʾ 26:105–122; Al-ʿAnkabut 29:14–15; Al-Qamar 54:9–17; At-Tahrim 66:10; Nuh 71.
Sahih al-Bukhari, hadith no. 4476. Trans. M. Muhsin Khan.
Sahih Muslim, hadith no. 193. Trans. Abdul Hamid Siddiqui.
Jami at-Tirmidhi 3231, graded Hasan by al-Albani.
Musnad Ahmad 19911, graded Sahih by Shu'ayb al-Arna'ut.
Ibn Kathir, Qiṣaṣ al-Anbiyāʾ, chapter on Nuh.
al-Tabari, Tārīkh ar-Rusul wa-l-Mulūk, vol. 1.
Umar Sulayman al-Ashqar, ar-Rusul wa-r-Risālāt, sections on Nuh.