Noah's Ark

I was attracted to this Surah because of its hautingly beautiful recitation by Syeikh Mahmoud Khalil el Husory.

He recited it in a somewhat sad way, making me wonder, is there a sad story behind it?

Indeed, there is a beautiful and sort of sad story behind this surah. Its about Prophet Noah. And understanding this surah, makes you love him even more.

How his people went to the extent of covering their faces with their garments and closing their ears with their fingers when Prophet Noah tried to preach.

I was really impressed by Prophet Noah’s diligence. He tried many ways to call his people to Allah, to save them from hellfire. But his people were too arrogant to accept his call.

And I was actually impressed by Prophet Noah’s approach calling people to Allah, especially when he preached about the earth and nature.

He talked about how trees grew, explained the different stages of foetus in the womb, about the moon, and about the sun. About the seven layers of earth’s atmosphere. About how the rain comes from the sky.

And the remarkable thing about this? He discussed this to his people about 50,000 years ago. About the time that Darwin thought men were still apes!

I was really impressed by the fact that Prophet Noah explained pure science to his people. Things that we just recently discovered. I thought people 50,000 year ago only knew how to find food, cook and procreate. I didn’t know they were taught to understand science!

And to think, we, people of this time, think that we are beyond God, beyond religion since we have discovered and advanced so much in science and technology. We think that science and technological advancement makes the presence of God irrelevant.

The truth is, there is nothing special in not believing in Allah. Its not a mark of technological advancement, its just arrogance and stupidity that brings us to destruction.

Its not up to date to defy Allah. In fact, its an old, lame tradition, as told and explained so many times in the Quran, so that we don’t follow the footsteps of these arrogant people again.

We are similar to Prophet Noah’s people in so many ways:

1. We are rich
2. We are prosperous in many ways – during Prophet Noah’s time prosperity in terms of having many children, living a good life.
3. We are intelligent, we know so much about science and technology.

Unfortunately, we are also among the arrogant and non-believers.

I also think we are more stupid, since the lesson learnt is written in the Quran loud and clear, and we still make the same mistake our ancestors did some 50,000 years ago.

**Mentioning Prophet Noah here does not mean I think he is better that other prophets, no Muslim should have the authority to judge that.

** Allah forbid we, the Muslims should follow the footsteps of non-believers.