Noah (Nooh)
In the name of God, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful
WE SENT NOAH to his people to warn them before the painful punishment came upon them. 1 He said: "O my people! Verily, I am a plain warner to you, 2 Worship Allah, and fear Him, and obey me. 3 "He (Allah) will forgive you of your sins and respite you to an appointed term. Verily, the term of Allah when it comes, cannot be delayed, if you but knew." 4 He said: "O Lord, I called my people night and day, 5 "But all my calling added nothing but to (their) flight (from the truth). 6 And verily so oft as I call them, that Thou mayest forgive them, they place their fingers into their ears, and wrap themselves with their garments, and persist, and are stiff-necked. 7 "I preached to them aloud, in public. 8 and indeed, I spoke to them both publicly and in secret: 9 and I said: "'Ask your Sustainer to forgive you your sins - for, verily, He is all-forgiving! 10 ‘He will send down abundant rain for you from the sky.’ 11 And He will add unto you riches and children and will appoint unto you gardens and will appoint unto you rivers. 12 What is amiss with you that you do not look forward to the majesty of Allah 13 While He has created you in (different) stages [i.e. first Nutfah, then 'Alaqah and then Mudghah, see (VV. 23:13, 14) the Quran]. 14 "Have you not seen that God has created the seven heavens one above the other 15 And made the moon therein a [reflected] light and made the sun a burning lamp? 16 And Allah has brought you forth from the (dust of) earth. [Tafsir At-Tabari, Vol. 29, Page 97]. 17 He will make you return to it and then take you out of it again. 18 And God has laid the earth for you as a carpet, 19 so that you may walk along its spacious paths?" 20