Prophet Nuh

After Adam and Hawwa came to Earth, their children and grandchildren spread across the land. Generations came and went. Cities grew. Fields were farmed.

But slowly slowly people began to forget Allah.

They started carving statues from wood and stone, giving them names like Wadd, Suwa, Yaghuth, Ya'uq, and Nasr, and bowing to them instead of Allah. These idols could not see, could not hear, and could not help yet people loved them dearly.

Allah who never abandons His creation looked upon these people with mercy. He decided to send them a messenger: someone who would call them back to the truth, remind them of their Creator, and warn them before it was too late.

That messenger was Prophet Nuh ﷺ.

Nuh stood before his people and called them to Allah and he never stopped.

He called them in the daytime. He called them at night. He spoke to them in public, in the marketplace, at gatherings. He spoke to them privately, at their doorsteps, one by one.

He tried every method. He spoke with wisdom, with gentleness, with stories. He reminded them of Allah's blessings: the rain from the sky, the crops from the earth, the rivers flowing, the sun giving light. He asked them: "Can a stone statue pour rain for you? Can a wooden idol give you children?"

How long did Nuh keep calling? Not one year. Not ten. Not a hundred.

Nine hundred and fifty years.

Almost a thousand years of the same patient message: There is only One God. Return to Allah. He will forgive you everything.

How did most people respond to Nuh's message?

They laughed at him.

When he spoke, the chiefs of his people would put their fingers in their ears and pull their cloaks over their heads as if blocking out his voice would make the truth disappear.

They mocked him: "He is just a man like us! Why would Allah send a message through an ordinary person?"

They called him crazy. They called him a liar. The powerful and wealthy looked down at the poor believers who followed Nuh and sneered: "We don't see anyone following you except the lowest people among us."

Nuh did not get angry. He did not give up. He simply replied: "Their account is only with my Lord if you could feel this. I do not drive away the believers."

He never turned away a single person who wanted to listen. The weak, the poor, the overlooked they were welcome. And they believed.

After 950 years, Allah told Nuh: those who refused will never believe. Now, something extraordinary was about to happen.

"And construct the ship under Our eyes and with Our inspiration."

Allah was commanding Nuh to build a massive ark a great ship unlike anything the world had ever seen.

There was just one problem: Nuh lived far from any sea. His people had never built anything like this before. The desert sand stretched around him in every direction.

Can you imagine? A man building a giant ship in the middle of dry land!

His people came to watch and they roared with laughter. "A boat in the desert? Has he gone mad?"

Nuh kept building. Plank by plank. Beam by beam. Following every instruction from Allah. He had something his mockers lacked: complete trust in Allah's plan.

And then Allah gave him a sign: "When the oven overflows with water that is when you know the flood is coming." An ordinary clay oven. Water would gush from it and that signal would change the world.

The ark was ready. And then it happened.

The oven began to bubble. Water gushed out of the dry clay. The sign had come.

Allah commanded: "Load upon the ship of each creature two mates a pair of every kind and take your family, and those who have believed."

What a sight that must have been! Animals arriving from every direction pairs of elephants, lions, giraffes, horses, camels, birds, insects two of every creature Allah wanted to preserve, walking calmly toward the great ark.

The believers boarded alongside them. They had waited and trusted for so long. Now, Allah's protection was here.

Nuh called out to everyone including his own son to come. To believe. To be saved.

Most refused.

Then the sky split open.

Rain poured down like the heavens had burst. Not a shower a wall of water crashing down from above.

And from below the ground springs burst open everywhere. The earth itself wept with water.

The water rose. And rose. And kept rising.

Houses were swallowed. Hills disappeared. Mountains became islands, then vanished. The entire surface of the Earth became one enormous, roaring ocean.

On the ark, Nuh and the believers were safe rising with the water, far above the chaos below. They heard the thunder. They felt the waves rock the great ship. And they knew: Allah had kept His promise.

Nuh called out: "In the name of Allah is its course and its anchorage. Indeed, my Lord is Forgiving and Merciful."

The ark sailed on the massive waves waves like mountains, crashing and roaring in the darkness.

Inside, the believers were safe. The animals were calm. The great ship held firm, exactly as Allah had designed it.

Day after day, week after week, the ark sailed. The people prayed. They remembered Allah. They took care of each other and the animals in their care.

They could not see land. They could not see the sky clearly through the rain. But they were not afraid.

Because they had something no storm could destroy: tawakkul complete trust in Allah.

The Prophet ﷺ told us that on the Day of Judgement, Nuh will be called "the first of the Messengers to the people of Earth." His reward for those centuries of patience and dedication is immense beyond imagination.

Among all the tests Nuh faced, the hardest was not the mockery. It was not the 950 years. It was this:

As the flood rose, Nuh looked across the dark water and saw his own son his own child being carried away by the waves.

He called out: "O my son! Come aboard with us. Do not be among the disbelievers!"

His son called back: "I will take refuge on a mountain it will protect me from the water!"

Nuh's heart broke. He cried: "Today there is no protection from Allah's decree, except for one whom He has mercy upon."

A great wave came between them. And Nuh's son was gone.

In grief, Nuh called out to Allah: "My Lord! My son was of my family!"

Allah gently, firmly replied: "O Nuh, indeed he was not of your family indeed, he was one whose work was other than righteous, so do not ask Me for that about which you have no knowledge."

Then Allah commanded the sky and the earth:

"O earth, swallow your water. O sky, withhold."

And the water obeyed. The rain stopped. The springs closed. Slowly, slowly, the waters receded. Peaks of mountains appeared. Then plains. Then valley floors.

The ark came to rest on Mount Judi. And Nuh and all who were with him stepped off onto dry land. Clean air. Solid ground. A world washed new.

From that small group of believers those who had trusted Allah through the impossible all the people who came after them descended. You and I are among their children.

Allah declared His eternal honour for Nuh:

سَلَامٌ عَلَىٰ نُوحٍ فِي الْعَالَمِينَ

"Peace be upon Nuh in all the worlds." (Qur'ān 37:79)

Nine hundred and fifty years. Mockery. Loss. A world-ending flood. A broken heart.

And through it all Nuh never gave up. He never stopped trusting Allah. And Allah never abandoned him.

That is the story of the messenger who never gave up.