Al-Furqan · Makki · ayah 37 of 77

Al-Furqan 25:37

وَقَوْمَ نُوحٍ لَّمَّا كَذَّبُوا۟ ٱلرُّسُلَ أَغْرَقْنَـٰهُمْ وَجَعَلْنَـٰهُمْ لِلنَّاسِ ءَايَةً ۖ وَأَعْتَدْنَا لِلظَّـٰلِمِينَ عَذَابًا أَلِيمًا

“And the people of Noah - when they denied the messengers,[1024] We drowned them, and We made them for mankind a sign. And We have prepared for the wrongdoers a painful punishment.”

Saheeh International

Essence

Nuh's people refused one messenger and so refused them all; the water ended them, their story became a sign, and a further reckoning waits.

A reflection

The water that filled the kettle that morning

When Nuh built his ship, the leaders of his people walked past and laughed at him (11:38). A ship, on dry land, far from any sea. Their laughter was the laughter of people who thought they knew what water could and could not do.

The ayah answers them with one word: aghraqnāhum, "We drowned them." The instrument was not fire from heaven or an army. It was water, the most ordinary thing in their lives. They drank it, washed in it and watered their flocks with it.

Stand on a town bridge after a week of rain. A painted depth gauge rises out of the river, metres marked in white. You watch the brown water slide past one number, then the next. It is the same water that filled every kettle in town that morning. Nothing about it has changed except that it no longer stays where it is told.

That is majesty seen from below. The things we think we control obey Another. Water keeps its place by His command, and leaves it by His command. One commentary reads the drowning as a sign of His power to uproot wrongdoers.

The ego shrinks in front of that. We plan as though the ground, the weather and our own bodies were ours to manage. A single wet week can show us how little we hold.

Does Allah need us to be impressed by this? No. The ayah itself says why the story is told: "We made them a sign for people." The telling is for the listener's benefit. He is rich beyond need, and we are the ones who need to remember. Pride is not only wrong; it is badly informed. Humility is simply knowing who keeps the water in its place.

The full entry has 6 more reflections, questions to sit with, and "Live it today" - with the words, the roots and the tafsir alongside. Free, no account, works offline.