11. Hud

And I do not say to you “I possess the treasure houses of God” nor “I have knowledge of the Unseen”; nor do I say “I am an angel” nay I am human like you. Nor do I say to those whom your eyes scorn that God will not give them any good — God knows best what is in their souls in their hearts. Lo! if I were to say this then indeed I would be of the evildoers’.

They said ‘O Noah you have disputed with us and disputed with us at length so bring upon us that wherewith you are threatening us in the way of chastisement if you are of the truthful’.

He said ‘Only God will bring it upon you if He wills to hasten it on for you for the decision is His not mine; and you cannot escape Him elude God.

And my counsel will not benefit you if I desire to counsel you when God desires to keep you astray the response to the conditional is indicated by wa-lā yanfa‘ukum nushī ‘and my counsel will not benefit you’. He is your Lord and to Him you will be brought back’.

God exalted be He says Or do they the disbelievers of Mecca say ‘He has invented it’? Muhammad (s) has invented the Qur’ān? Say ‘If I have invented it then my crime will be upon me my sin will be upon me that is the punishment for it; and I am innocent of what you commit’ of crime when you attribute invention to me.

And it was revealed to Noah that ‘None of your people will believe except he who has already believed. Do not be distressed grieved because of what they do in the way of idolatry. So he Noah invoked God against them with the words My Lord leave not one of the disbelievers upon the earth Q. 7126. God responded to this invocation of his and said

Build the Ark the ship under Our eyes under Our watch and protection and by Our inspiration by Our command and do not address Me concerning those who have done evil those who have disbelieved by asking that I should refrain from destroying them; lo! they shall be drowned’.

And he was building the Ark yasna‘ is narrating a past state in the present tense and whenever a council a group of his people passed him they scoffed at him mocked him. He said ‘Though you scoff at us yet we scoff at you even as you scoff when we are saved while you drown;

and you shall know to whom man introduces the relative clause which constitutes the direct object of the action of ‘knowing’ will come a chastisement degrading him and upon whom an enduring an everlasting chastisement will fall’.

Such that when hattā represents the objective for the action of ‘building’ Our command came for their destruction and the baker’s oven gushed forth with water — this was the sign for Noah — We said ‘Load therein in the ship of every kind of every male and female that is of every species of these two two a male and a female ithnayn constitutes the direct object. According to the story God gathered for Noah all the beasts of prey and birds and other animals; he Noah would go through every species to select them with his hands and his right hand would fall upon a male and the left upon a female whereupon he would take them aboard the ship; and your family — that is his wife and children — save those against whom the Word has already gone forth from among them that they be destroyed this was his wife and his son Canaan in contrast with Shem Ham and Japheth whom he took aboard together with their three wives and those who believe’. And none but a few believed with him it is said that these were six men and their wives; it is also said that the number of all those aboard the ship was eighty half of whom were men and the other half women.