قَالُوٓا۟ أَنُؤْمِنُ لَكَ وَٱتَّبَعَكَ ٱلْأَرْذَلُونَ · قَالَ وَمَا عِلْمِى بِمَا كَانُوا۟ يَعْمَلُونَ · إِنْ حِسَابُهُمْ إِلَّا عَلَىٰ رَبِّى ۖ لَوْ تَشْعُرُونَ · وَمَآ أَنَا۠ بِطَارِدِ ٱلْمُؤْمِنِينَ · إِنْ أَنَا۠ إِلَّا نَذِيرٌ مُّبِينٌ
Qālū a-nuʾminu laka wa'ttabaʿaka'l-ardhalūn · Qāla wa mā ʿilmī bimā kānū yaʿmalūn · In ḥisābuhum illā ʿalā rabbī law tashʿurūn · Wa mā anā bi-ṭāridi'l-muʾminīn · In anā illā nadhīrun mubīn
"They said: 'Shall we believe you when the lowest of the people have followed you?' · He said: 'I have no knowledge of what they have been doing. · Their reckoning falls only upon my Lord — if only you understood! · I am not one to drive away the believers. · I am nothing but a clear warner.'"
The people do not discuss what Noah has said. They do not speak of God's oneness, of the hereafter, of messengership. Their objection concerns who has believed.
I record this as an observation: the five answers the other side gives in the sūra differ from one another, and in none of them is there a counter-proof. This is the first answer, and its subject is not the content but the composition of the parties.
The root ر-ذ-ل: the worthless, the low, the useless part of a thing. Ardhal — an elative: the lowest, the most worthless. The Qurʾān uses the same word of the feeblest stage of life as well: ardhali'l-ʿumur (al-Naḥl 16/70; al-Ḥajj 22/5).
And that the word has a social sense is clear from the telling of the same event at Hūd 11/27: wa mā narāka'ttabaʿaka illa'lladhīna hum arādhilunā bādiya'r-raʾy — "we see none following you but our lowest, at first glance". The objection, that is, looks to economic and social standing.
I record this as an observation, and it belongs to the same family as the objection recorded at al-Zukhruf 43/31: law lā nuzzila hādha'l-qurʾānu ʿalā rajulin mina'l-qaryatayni ʿaẓīm — "if only this Qurʾān had been sent down upon a great man of the two towns". Both objections make the standing of those who carry or receive the message the measure.
In both places āmana li- is used: "to trust you, to hold you true". This is an overlap that can be verified from the text. And in both the subject is not what is to be believed but the person to be believed.
Noah does not defend those who have believed. He does not say "they are good people". He says "I do not know what they have been doing".
I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the sentence itself: the answer rejects the ground the objection rests on. The objection made the quality of the believers the measure; the answer says that measure does not belong to the messenger.
And the next verse closes this plainly: in ḥisābuhum illā ʿalā rabbī — "their reckoning falls only upon my Lord".
And the preposition ʿalā must be recorded: the same preposition was in the sentence about the wage (ʿalā rabbi'l-ʿālamīn). In both sentences ʿalā ties the obligation to God: the wage and the reckoning both belong to Him. This is an overlap that can be verified from the text.
لَوْ تَشْعُرُونَ — "if only you understood". The root ش-ع-ر: to perceive what is fine and hidden. From the same root come shiʿr (poetry) and shāʿir (poet) — the word will return in the final section of the sūra (224). This is a repetition that can be verified from the text, and the analysis of the root will be made there.
And the word order of the sentence must be recorded: the mā … bi- mould. In Arabic the bāʾ that comes on the predicate of the negative mā reinforces the negation: "I will never drive them away."
And the object must be recorded: al-muʾminīn — "the believers". The people had called them al-ardhalūn ("the lowest"); Noah names those same persons al-muʾminīn.
And the Qurʾān takes up this matter elsewhere too: wa lā taṭrudi'lladhīna yadʿūna rabbahum bi'l-ghadāti wa'l-ʿashiyy (al-Anʿām 6/52) — the same root (taṭrud), the same prohibition. And Sūrat ʿAbasa treats another face of this matter; it was treated in ʿAbasa.
And it ties to the third verse of the sūra. I record it as my own reading: at 26/3 the messenger was told "you are almost destroying yourself" — that is, he was informed that he is not responsible for the outcome. In the hundred and fifteenth verse another messenger states the same limit with his own mouth: "I am only a warner."
And the list of limits tabulated at al-Qaṣaṣ 28/56 is a relative of this verse as well. I rely on the note there.
مُّبِين — a word occurring five times in the sūra; its analysis was made and tabulated at 26/1-2. That it qualifies nadhīr here must be recorded: the warning is not hidden or veiled — it is a warning that makes clear.