The Role of Noah
It was God’s intervention to stop humanity’s headlong slide into evil.
Adam was the first man as well as the first prophet. He and his wife Eve probably settled in present-day Iraq, called Mesopotamia in ancient languages. The descendants of Adam and Eve adhered to the religion of Adam for many generations. Gradually corruption prevailed, and almost all his descendants became involved in polytheism. They made their elders, after their death, their deities. Some of them were called Vadd, Suwa, Yagooth, Yaooq, Nasr etc. Then God sent Prophet Noah to them. He communicated the message of monotheism to these people for a long time, almost 900 years. But only a few believed in him (11:40). According to some traditions, not more than eighty people believed in Prophet Noah, and the rest persisted in polytheism.
Prophet Noah adopted all the means of communication. The Quran refers to it as follows, “he spoke to them in public and in private” (71:9). Finally, Prophet Noah realised that people’s conditioning had become so rooted that every child born to them would eventually adopt the same religion of polytheism.
When corruption reached that level, God decided to save the believers and destroy the corrupt. God commanded Prophet Noah to build a large ark for putting the believing men and women on board and to put a pair from every animal around him. When the Ark was ready, stormy winds started blowing at God’s behest. Torrents of water started gushing out of the ground, and there was continuous rainfall. So much so that there was water everywhere and all the people were drowned. The only survivors were a few human beings and some animals who had boarded Noah’s ark. When all the evil people were drowned, God commanded the storm to stop. The water drained into seas and rivers, and the earth again became habitable. Noah’s ark ran aground on Mount Judi (11:44). This event took place about five thousand years ago. According to modern discoveries, the current name of this mountain is Ararat, which is located in eastern Turkey.
God has punished people several times because of their unrighteousness and sinful ways. But the punishment through a great flood has taken place only once. It was God’s intervention to stop humanity’s headlong slide into evil. But God’s planning is superb, and He is the organiser of human history. He destroyed the evil people to provide the opportunity for good people to scatter in the world and start afresh with a new beginning and fulfil God’s plan of creation. Through the ark having reached the top of the Mount Judi, it became possible for the believers to establish human settlements in different parts of the world. Until Noah’s time, the human race inhabited only a limited area of Mesopotamia (Iraq). After the great flood, the human race spread to different parts of the earth.
