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What the classical commentators say about these fourteen ayat. Take this one if you want to go deeper.
Two stories, told in the same shape. Nuh and his people in three units (ayat 59–64), then Hud and the people of ʿAd in four (ayat 65–72). The second story opens with the same eight words as the first; the page says where the two part.
Ayah 59 — The call
Allah sent Nuh to his people. His first words to them: worship Allah, you have no god other than Him. Then a warning: I fear for you the punishment of a tremendous Day.
Source summary: Ibn Kathir says that after the story of Adam at the start of the surah, Allah begins the stories of the Prophets, “the first then the latter of them”. He starts with Nuh “because he was the first Messenger Allah sent to the people of the earth after Adam”.
Paraphrase from the Arabic: Al-Qurtubi links the story to the ayat before it. Allah has made clear that He is the Creator, able to bring what He makes to completion. Now He tells the stories of the nations, with the warning in them for those who disbelieve.
Source summary: Which Day? Ibn Kathir and al-Jalalayn take it as the Day of Resurrection. Ibn Kathir: “the torment of the Day of Resurrection, if you meet Allah while associating others with Him”.
Paraphrase from the Arabic: Al-Tabari describes it as a day when their suffering will be great, without naming it.
Optional source note — how the idols of Nuh’s people began, and a reading of the ayah
Paraphrase from the Arabic: On “worship Allah”, al-Tabari says: worship the One who alone is owed worship, humble yourselves to Him in obedience, and leave the gods you worship besides Him.
Source summary: Ibn Kathir reports from Ibn ʿAbbas and other commentators how idol worship began among Nuh’s people. In Sahih al-Bukhari (4920) Ibn ʿAbbas names the five idols of 71:23, Wadd, Suwaʿ, Yaghuth, Yaʿuq and Nasr, and says the names “formerly belonged to some pious men of the people of Noah”. When those men died, Satan prompted their people to set up images where they used to sit and call them by their names. The images were not worshipped until that generation had died and the reason for them was forgotten. This is Ibn ʿAbbas’s own account, not a saying of the Prophet ﷺ.
Paraphrase from the Arabic: The word for “other than Him” is read two ways, ghayruhu and ghayrihi, and al-Jalalayn and al-Qurtubi explain the grammar of each. Al-Qurtubi says ghayruhu, the reading in the Arabic on this site, is the reading of Nafiʿ, Abu ʿAmr, ʿAsim and Hamza, and al-Kisaʾi reads ghayrihi. He glosses the phrase: you have no god but Allah.
Facilitator guidance
For the facilitator: Two of the four name the Day as the Day of Resurrection, and the other two leave it unnamed. None of them reads it as the day of the flood. Ibn Kathir also gives Nuh’s family line, and al-Qurtubi gives reports about Nuh’s age; they are not on these pages, and the Facilitator guide says why. That Nuh stayed among his people “a thousand years minus fifty years” is the Qur’an itself (29:14).
Reflection: The call is one sentence. The rest of the story is how people answered it.
Ayat 60–63 — The leaders’ charge and the messenger’s answer
The eminent among his people say they see him in clear error. Nuh answers that there is no error in him: he is a messenger who conveys his Lord’s messages and advises them. Then he asks: do you wonder that a reminder came to you through a man from among you?
Source summary: On al-malaʾ, “the eminent”, Ibn Kathir says: “the general public, chiefs, commanders and great ones of his people”.
Paraphrase from the Arabic: Al-Qurtubi explains al-malaʾ as the nobles of the people and their chiefs. Al-Jalalayn’s Arabic has one word for it, the nobles.
Source summary: Ibn Kathir says they called it error because Nuh called them to leave the idols “that we found our forefathers worshipping”. Then he says: “This, indeed, is the attitude of evil people, for they consider the righteous people to be following misguidance.” His Arabic sets the wicked against the righteous. He compares 83:32 and 46:11.
Source summary: They said ḍalāl, error; Nuh answers laysa bī ḍalālah. Al-Jalalayn says ḍalālah “is more general” than ḍalāl, so denying it is stronger: not even a little error. Al-Qurtubi, in his Arabic, says the two words mean the same thing, turning away from the path of truth.
Source summary: On ayah 62, Ibn Kathir says: “This is the attribute of a Messenger, that he conveys using plain, yet eloquent words, offers sincere advice and is knowledgeable about Allah.” He brings the narration of the Day of ʿArafah, where the Companions said the Prophet ﷺ had conveyed and advised (optional on the hadith page). Al-Jalalayn explains “I advise you” as “I desire good for you”.
Source summary: On ayah 63, Ibn Kathir reads the question as “do not wonder because of this”: it is not strange that Allah sends revelation “to a man among you as mercy, kindness and compassion for you”. Al-Jalalayn reads it as a denial.
Paraphrase from the Arabic: Al-Qurtubi reads it as a question that makes them admit it. Al-Tabari says Nuh said this after they had rejected his advice, and gives their words from 11:27: “We do not see you but as a man like ourselves.”
Paraphrase from the Arabic: Saheeh International has “through a man from among you”. The commentators read the small word ʿalā in three ways. Al-Jalalayn: “through the tongue of a man from among you”. Al-Tabari reports, after al-Farraʾ, that it means with a man from among you. Al-Qurtubi gives both, and a third: sent down to a man whose family you know, one of your own kind. Had he been an angel, he says, you might have shrunk from him because he was not like you.
Optional source note — “I convey” and “I advise”, and what Nuh knows
Paraphrase from the Arabic: On “I know from Allah what you do not know”, al-Tabari says: that His punishment is not turned away from people who persist in wrongdoing. Ibn Kathir reads the phrase as part of what a messenger is: one who knows Allah.
Paraphrase from the Arabic: Uballighukum, I convey to you, is also read ublighukum; al-Jalalayn and al-Qurtubi give both. Al-Qurtubi says the two may be one meaning in two dialects.
Paraphrase from the Arabic: Al-Qurtubi defines nuṣḥ, sincere advice, as making your intention pure of any cheating in how you deal with someone. With the little word lakum, “to you”, he says the verb is the more eloquent, as here. He adds two pictures from the language: al-Asmaʿi said al-nāṣiḥ is pure honey, and al-nāṣiḥ is also a tailor, and al-niṣāḥ the thread he sews with.
Source summary: “A reminder” in ayah 63 is an admonition: al-Jalalayn and al-Qurtubi both explain dhikr this way here.
Facilitator guidance
For the facilitator: Ibn Kathir’s line is about the wicked and the righteous. In the discussion, turn it toward ourselves: how quickly any of us calls the person who corrects us “astray”. Never point it at a group of people. Al-Jalalayn’s English gives the leaders as “the council of the respected elders”; his Arabic has the one word for nobles, and this page follows the Arabic.
Reflection: They call him astray, and he answers “my people”, and says what he came to do. The question in ayah 63 still reaches us: does a reminder count for less because it comes through someone we know?
Ayah 64 — Denied, saved, and “a blind people”
They denied him. Allah saved Nuh and those with him in the ship, and drowned those who denied His signs. The ayah ends: they were a blind people.
Source summary: Ibn Kathir says they “insisted on rejecting and opposing him, and only a few of them believed in him”. He explains al-fulk as “the ark”, and for the drowning he compares 71:25.
Source summary: All four read “blind” as blindness to the truth, not of the eyes. Ibn Kathir: “blind from the Truth, unable to recognize it or find their way to it”. Al-Jalalayn: “a people blind to the truth”.
Paraphrase from the Arabic: Al-Tabari reports the same from Mujahid and Ibn Zayd: blind to the truth. Al-Qurtubi reports it from Qatada, and adds how the word is used: a man is called ʿamin about something when he does not know it.
Paraphrase from the Arabic: Al-Tabari says those who were drowned had denied Allah’s proofs, had not followed His messengers, and had not accepted Nuh’s advice to them. He ties the end of the story back to the advice of ayah 62.
Source summary: Ibn Kathir: “This is Allah’s Sunnah (way) with His servants, in this life and the Hereafter, that the good end, victory and triumph is for those who fear Him.” He compares 40:51.
Facilitator guidance
For the facilitator: Keep the drowning with the text and its tafsir, not with any flood or disaster in the news. How many people were saved, and the size of the ship, are not in this passage. The commentators’ reports on the number saved differ, and none is graded, so they are not on these pages. Nuh’s son is in Surah Hud (11:42–46), not here.
Reflection: They said Nuh was in clear error. The ayah ends by telling us who could not see.
Ayat 65–66 — The same call, and the charge of foolishness
Allah sent Hud to ʿAd. His first words are Nuh’s words, letter for letter: worship Allah, you have no god other than Him. The leaders answer with a new charge. Not error this time, but safāhah: foolishness, lightness of mind.
Source summary: Ibn Kathir opens the story as a second telling of the first: just as Allah sent Nuh to his people, so He sent Hud to ʿAd, one of their own brethren. He says Hud was among the nobles and chiefs of his people, “for Allah chose the Messengers from among the best, most honorable families and tribes”, and that Hud called them to worship Allah alone and to obey and fear Him. He places ʿAd in Yemen, in al-Ahqaf, “which means sand mounds”, after 46:21.
Source summary: On ayah 66, Ibn Kathir says the leaders called it foolishness because Hud called them “to abandon worshipping the idols in order to worship Allah Alone”, and he sets beside it the wonder of Quraysh at the oneness of God in 38:5. Al-Jalalayn glosses safāhah as ignorance.
Paraphrase from the Arabic: Al-Qurtubi explains safāhah as stupidity and lightness of mind, and brings a line of old poetry in which the tips of spears sway as the soft winds pass, to show the picture in the root: something light that moves with every breeze. He also notes the two verbs: “we see you” may be seeing with the eye, or the strong opinion that stands in for it; “we think you” is an opinion. Al-Tabari reads safāhah as error from the truth and the right way, because Hud had left their religion and the worship of their gods.
Optional source note — where the two openings part
Source summary: Al-Jalalayn reads “worship Allah” as: affirm His oneness. And “will you not fear Him” as: will you not fear Him, and so believe?
Paraphrase from the Arabic: On “their brother”, al-Qurtubi gives three readings that come to one thing: the son of their father, that is, one of them; or their brother in the tribe; or a human being like them, a child of Adam. He says Hud was of the middle of them in lineage and the best of them in standing. Al-Tabari glosses the last clause of ayah 65: will you not be wary of your Lord and fear His punishment, when He is your Creator and Provider and nothing else is?
Paraphrase from the Arabic: The first eight words of Hud’s call, from “O my people” to “other than Him”, are byte for byte the words of Nuh at 7:59. The comparison is ours, made on the Uthmani text as the Verses page carries it. What follows is where the two prophets part: Nuh names the fear, “I fear for you the punishment of a tremendous Day”; Hud asks for it, “Then will you not fear Him?” Salih will open the same way at 7:73, the next passage, and point at a sign.
Paraphrase from the Arabic: Al-Tabari notes the grammar of “Hud” in ayah 65: it is in the same case as “Nuh” in ayah 59, because the sentence is joined to it. The Qur’an itself joins the two stories. Al-Jalalayn calls these the earlier ʿAd, the people of 89:6–8.
Facilitator guidance
For the facilitator: Ibn Kathir and al-Qurtubi both carry the family line of ʿAd and of Hud from Ibn Ishaq, reports on where ʿAd lived and how many tribes they were, and a report about the grave of Hud. All of it is introduced as report, none of it is graded, and none of it is on these pages. If someone asks where ʿAd lived, the Qur’an names al-Ahqaf (46:21), and the commentators place it in the south of Arabia; leave it there. Al-Qurtubi’s note that the chiefs said “we see you” as a fact and “we think you” as an opinion is a good small thing to point out in the room.
Reflection: Nuh was called astray. Hud is called a lightweight, someone not to be taken seriously. The second is often the easier charge to make, and the harder one to answer.
Ayat 67–69 — The trustworthy adviser, and what ʿAd were given
Hud answers in the leaders’ own word: there is no foolishness in me. Then he says what he is, not what he is not: a messenger who conveys, and a trustworthy adviser. He asks the question Nuh asked, do you wonder that a reminder came through a man among you, and names two favours: Allah made them successors after the people of Nuh, and gave them stature. So remember the favours of Allah.
Source summary: On ayah 68, Ibn Kathir says: “These, indeed, are the qualities of the Prophets: conveying, sincerity and honesty”. Al-Jalalayn reads “trustworthy” as trustworthy in the message he conveys.
Paraphrase from the Arabic: Al-Tabari gives the fullest sense of amīn. Hud says: in ordering you to worship Allah alone, and in calling you to believe what I bring, I am sincere to you, so accept my advice; and I am trustworthy over the revelation of Allah and over what He has entrusted to me. I do not lie in it, I do not add to it, I do not change it. I convey what I was commanded, as I was commanded. Al-Qurtubi repeats his notes from ayah 62 on nuṣḥ, sincere advice, and on the two readings of “I convey”; they are in the unit above.
Source summary: On ayah 69, Ibn Kathir reads the question as he read it at ayah 63: do not wonder that Allah sent a messenger from among yourselves to warn you; “Rather than wondering, you should thank Allah for this bounty”. On “successors after the people of Noah” he says: remember Allah’s favour on you, “that He made you among the offspring of Nuh”, after the people of the earth were destroyed for opposing him. On “increased you in stature extensively” he says it means “making you taller than other people”, and compares what is said of Talut in 2:247. The favours at the end are “Allah’s favors and blessings”.
Paraphrase from the Arabic: Al-Tabari reads “successors” as a warning as much as a favour. Remember what befell the people of Nuh when they disobeyed their messenger, he says; your Lord made you successors in the earth after them only because He destroyed them and put you in their place. So fear Allah, lest the like of their punishment befall you, and He destroy you and put others in your place: that is His way with the people of Nuh before you. On the stature, he says Allah increased their bodies in height and bulk, and their strength over the strength of Nuh’s people, as a favour to be thanked by worshipping Him alone. He gives the word for “favours”, ālāʾ, its singular, and reports from Qatadah, al-Suddi and Ibn Zayd that it means blessings.
Optional source note — the small words
Source summary: On ayah 67, Ibn Kathir has Hud say: I am not as you claim; I brought you the truth from Allah, “Who created everything, and He is the Lord and King of all things”. Al-Tabari reads the denial the same way as at 7:61: no error from the truth.
Source summary: Al-Jalalayn reads “through a man from among you” as through the tongue of a man; “successors” as successors in the earth; and “increased you in stature extensively” as in strength and in height. “That you might succeed” he glosses as: that you might triumph.
Paraphrase from the Arabic: Al-Qurtubi explains the opening of ayah 69 as a question that makes the hearer admit the thing: the wāw is “and”, and the question particle before it asks for an admission. On “through a man from among you” he gives the same three readings as at ayah 63: on the tongue of a man, with a man, or sent down to a man whose family you know. Had he been an angel, a different kind of being, there might have been a natural aversion. On “successors” he says it is the plural of khalīfah by meaning, as against khalāʾif by form, and that Allah favoured them by making them the inhabitants of the earth after the people of Nuh.
Paraphrase from the Arabic: The word for “stature”, basṭah, is from a root that means to spread out or extend. The Uthmani text writes it with the letter ṣād and a small sīn above; the Arabic words page has the word.
Facilitator guidance
For the facilitator: Two things were dropped from ayah 69. Al-Jalalayn adds a sentence giving the height of the people of ʿAd in cubits; it rests on no established report and is not on these pages, and the English edition on altafsir.com also mistranslates the unit. Al-Tabari and Ibn Kathir carry long narratives from Ibn Ishaq about ʿAd, their drought and their delegation; they are reports, not graded, and the Facilitator guide says how to handle them if someone brings them. The copy of al-Qurtubi we read stops part way through ayah 69, so nothing is attributed to him on the stature or the favours. The word “favours” was session 10’s word, at 7:74; its card is there.
Reflection: Hud does not defend his intelligence. He says what he does and whose he is. Then he tells a strong people that their strength was given, and that the people before them were removed.
Ayat 70–71 — Our fathers, and names with nothing behind them
ʿAd answer with their inheritance: have you come so that we leave what our fathers worshipped? Then a dare: bring us what you promise. Hud answers that the sentence is already due, that the names they argue over have no authority from Allah, and that he will wait with them.
Source summary: On ayah 70, Ibn Kathir says Allah mentions “the rebellion, defiance and stubbornness” of Hud’s people, and he sets their dare beside the dare of Quraysh in 8:32, who asked for stones from the sky if the message was true.
Source summary: On ayah 71, Ibn Kathir says they deserved rijs from their Lord for what they said, and reports from Ibn ʿAbbas that rijs here means scorn and anger. On the names: do you dispute with me over idols that you and your fathers made into gods, “even though they do not bring harm or benefit”, when Allah gave you no authority or proof to worship them? And “then wait” is “a threat and warning from the Messenger to his people”.
Paraphrase from the Arabic: Al-Tabari reads “Already have defilement and anger fallen upon you” as: punishment and anger from Allah have already come down upon you. On the names, he says worship belongs only to the One who harms and benefits, rewards and punishes, gives provision and withholds it; as for stone, iron and copper, there is no benefit in them and no harm, and the one who worships them has no argument, because Allah did not permit it. “Then wait” he reads as: wait for Allah’s judgement between us and you; I am waiting with you for His decree. He also reports Ibn ʿAbbas on rijs: displeasure.
Paraphrase from the Arabic: Al-Qurtubi reads “fallen” as: has become due, the way one says a judgement has fallen, and compares 7:134 later in this surah. He takes rijs as punishment, and records a second view, that it is the rust that gathers on the heart as disbelief increases. On the names he makes the point of the ayah: the name stands for the thing named, as in 53:23; and the names were like al-ʿUzza, from the word for might, and there is nothing of might or divinity in them. “Authority” is any proof for worshipping them.
Optional source note — the words
Paraphrase from the Arabic: Al-Tabari fills out their answer: have you come to threaten us with punishment for the religion we hold, so that we worship Allah alone and abandon the gods our fathers worshipped? We will not, and we will not follow you; so bring the punishment you threaten, if you are truthful. Al-Qurtubi has one line: they asked for the very punishment he had warned them of. Al-Jalalayn reads “leave” as forsake, and “what you promise us” as the punishment.
Source summary: Al-Jalalayn reads rijs as punishment, “authority” as argument and proof, and “then wait” as: wait for the punishment. He ends the ayah by naming what came: because they denied him, the barren wind was sent against them, after 51:41.
Paraphrase from the Arabic: Al-Tabari reports the view of Abu ʿAmr ibn al-ʿAlaʾ that rijz and rijs are one word with a letter exchanged. The commentators’ glosses of rijs differ: scorn and anger (Ibn ʿAbbas, in Ibn Kathir and al-Tabari), punishment (al-Jalalayn and al-Qurtubi), and the rust on the heart (a view al-Qurtubi records). The page says they differ rather than choosing one; the word is on the Arabic words page among the runners-up.
Paraphrase from the Arabic: The same dare is in 46:22, in almost the same words, and 46:23 gives Hud’s answer there: knowledge of its time is only with Allah, and I convey what I was sent with. The verb “dispute” in ayah 71 is the one Nuh’s people use of him in 11:32.
Facilitator guidance
For the facilitator: Ibn Kathir and al-Tabari both report the names of ʿAd’s idols from Ibn Ishaq. They rest on him alone and are not on these pages. The argument of ayah 70 is not that their gods are true but that their fathers worshipped them; in the discussion, turn it toward what each of us has inherited, and never toward anyone’s parents. Q3 and the guide say how.
Reflection: Their case rests on their fathers. His answer is about names: a name can promise what the thing cannot give. Then he waits, with them.
Ayah 72 — Saved by mercy; the root cut
Allah saved Hud and those with him, by mercy from Him. Those who denied His signs were cut off to the last; they were not believers.
Source summary: Ibn Kathir says Allah mentions in several places how ʿAd were destroyed: He “sent a barren wind that destroyed everything it passed by”. He quotes 69:6–8, the wind that Allah sent against them for seven nights and eight days, and 46:24–25, the cloud they took for rain.
Paraphrase from the Arabic: Al-Tabari reads “We eliminated” as: We destroyed those of Hud’s people who denied Our proofs, all of them to the last man, and left none of them. He reports Ibn Zayd: We uprooted them. He sends the reader back to 6:45, where the same phrase is used, “the people that committed wrong were eliminated”. On “they were not believers” he says: they did not believe in Allah nor in His messenger Hud.
Optional source note — the last of them
Paraphrase from the Arabic: Al-Qurtubi glosses the word Saheeh renders “eliminated”, dābir, as the last: no remnant of them was left. Al-Jalalayn says the same, we uprooted them, and notes that “they were not believers” is joined to “denied”.
Paraphrase from the Arabic: The believers are saved “by mercy from Us”, not by their strength. Set against ayah 69, where strength and stature were the favour, and against 41:15, where ʿAd ask who is greater than them in strength, the contrast is the passage’s own; the observation is ours.
Facilitator guidance
For the facilitator: Keep the end of ʿAd with the text and its tafsir, not with any storm, hurricane or disaster in the news. Ibn Kathir and al-Tabari carry reports on how the bodies fell and what the wind did; the Qur’an’s own picture (69:7, 54:20, 46:25) is enough, and it is all the pages quote. The copy of al-Tabari we read says “Nuh” where it should say “Hud” at the start of this ayah, a slip in the text; the pages do not reproduce it. The long story of the delegation of ʿAd, which some in the room may know, is handled in the Facilitator guide.
Reflection: Ayah 69 called them successors, people put in a place after others. Ayah 72 cuts off what would have come after them. Between the two is a dare and a wait.
Sources and further reading
- Tafsir Ibn Kathir (English, abridged) — Four entries, on 7:59–62, 7:63–64, 7:65–69 and 7:70–72. The full Arabic text was read as well, for every ayah. on 7:59–62 ↗ · on 7:63–64 ↗ · on 7:65–69 ↗ · on 7:70–72 ↗ · Arabic, from 7:59 ↗
- Tafsir al-Jalalayn (English, trans. Feras Hamza) — Word-level glosses on every ayah; the Arabic text was read on ayat 60–62 and 65–72. on 7:59 ↗ · on 7:65 ↗ · on 7:69 ↗ · on 7:71 ↗ · on 7:72 ↗
- Tafsir al-Tabari (Arabic) — Read for every ayah. on 7:59 ↗ · on 7:63 ↗ · on 7:65 ↗ · on 7:68 ↗ · on 7:69 ↗ · on 7:71 ↗ · on 7:72 ↗
- Tafsir al-Qurtubi (Arabic) — Read for every ayah; the copy of his commentary on 7:69 stops part way through the ayah. on 7:59 ↗ · on 7:62 ↗ · on 7:65 ↗ · on 7:66 ↗ · on 7:68 ↗ · on 7:69 ↗ · on 7:71 ↗ · on 7:72 ↗
- Sahih al-Bukhari 4920 — Ibn ʿAbbas on the idols of Nuh’s people, in al-Bukhari’s book of tafsir, on 71:23. on Sunnah.com ↗
- Quranic Arabic Corpus — Roots and counts on the Arabic words page. 7:60 word by word ↗ · 7:69 word by word ↗