﴿ قَالَ يَٰقَوْمِ لَيْسَ بِى ضَلَٰلَةٌۭ وَلَٰكِنِّى رَسُولٌۭ مِّن رَّبِّ ٱلْعَٰلَمِينَ ﴾

“Said [Noah]: "O my people! There is no error in me, but I am an apostle from the Sustainer of all the worlds.”

After Adam, for about one thousand years his descendants adhered to the monotheistic faith (faith in the oneness of God). Thereafter, according to a tradition as told by ‘Abdullah ibn ‘Abbas, people started making the likenesses of their ancient great ones, so that the memory of their feats and their prayers would remain fresh in their minds. The names of these revered figures were Wudd, Suwa‘, Yaguth, Ya‘uq and Nasr. Gradually, these great men acquired the status of gods among these people who inhabited ancient Iraq. When this evil increased to this extent in them, God sent Noah to reform them, appointing him as His Prophet. But they refused to accept Noah. They were not ready to adopt the way of righteousness and fear of God (taqwa). According to the Quran, the reason for this refusal was that it was very difficult for them to understand that a man who was apparently like them had been selected to deliver God’s message on His behalf. Compared to the great men whose religion they were ostensibly following and whose greatness had become recognised in the annals of history, Noah, their contemporary, with no glory attached to his name, appeared to them to be just an ordinary man. So, his community refused to accept him. They did not hesitate to call the prophet of the time foolish and misguided, because according to them, he had deviated from the religion of their great ones. The well-wishing on the part of Noah, the strength of his arguments, his reasoning, his being staunchly on the path of Truth—none of these things could influence them. When Noah had fully conveyed the divine message, and was rejected by the people, the community was drowned in the great flood. The reason for this punishment was that they had falsified and denied God’s signs. They wanted God’s message to be conveyed to them through an established personality instead of an ‘ordinary person.’ But, in the eyes of God, this was blindness. God has given man insight so that he should recognise the Truth in the shape of ‘signs’ and not through any tangible object. Those who do not recognise Truth in the shape of signs, are in the eyes of God blind in spite of having eyes. Such people have no share in the grace of God.