71/2-4 — Noah's first address
2. قَالَ يَا قَوْمِ إِنِّي لَكُمْ نَذِيرٌ مُّبِينٌ Qāla yā qawmi innī lakum nadhīrun mubīn "He said: O my people! I am to you a clear warner."
3. أَنِ اعْبُدُوا اللَّهَ وَاتَّقُوهُ وَأَطِيعُونِ Ani'budu'llāha wa'ttaqūhu wa aṭīʿūn "Serve God, guard yourselves against Him, and obey me."
4. يَغْفِرْ لَكُم مِّن ذُنُوبِكُمْ وَيُؤَخِّرْكُمْ إِلَىٰ أَجَلٍ مُّسَمًّى ۚ إِنَّ أَجَلَ اللَّهِ إِذَا جَاءَ لَا يُؤَخَّرُ ۖ لَوْ كُنتُمْ تَعْلَمُونَ Yaghfir lakum min dhunūbikum wa yuʾakhkhirkum ilā ajalin musammā; inna ajala'llāhi idhā jāʾa lā yuʾakhkhar; law kuntum taʿlamūn "That He may forgive you some of your sins and defer you to an appointed term. Surely when God's appointed term comes it is not deferred — if only you knew."
The address begins with a declaration of belonging. Not "O mankind" but "O my people". And the possessive ending (yā qawmī → yā qawmi) is shortened; this is a common lightening in Arabic address and lends intimacy to the speech.
That Noah does not place himself outside the people is a stance kept up to the end of the sūra. Even in verse 28 — when his people have been destroyed — he will ask forgiveness for his own parents.
Nadhīr is from the same root as andhir in verse 1. The command has become an attribute: the man commanded to warn introduces himself as "a warner". The task has turned into an identity.
مبين, root ب-ي-ن: to open the space between two things, to separate. The wide analysis of this root was made in Sūrat al-Bayyina (bayyina — the proof that distinguishes). Mubīn is the active participle of Form IV, and in Arabic this pattern carries both a transitive sense (making clear, distinguishing) and an intransitive one (being itself clear).
- A warner who makes clear: one who does not hide what he warns of, who does not speak obliquely.
- A clear warner: one whose position is evident, whose identity is in the open.
The rest of the sūra supports the first: in verse 8 Noah will say jihār (openly), in verse 9 aʿlantu (I announced). So "mubīn" is like a promise, and its carrying out is described in the verses that follow.
| Command | Root | Its direction |
|---|---|---|
| uʿbudū'llāh | ع-ب-د | To God — a positive bond |
| ittaqūh | و-ق-ي | To God — a protective distance |
| aṭīʿūn | ط-و-ع | To the messenger — the intermediate link |
The root of عبادة is ع-ب-د: a road's being levelled by being trodden over and over (ṭarīqun muʿabbad). The root's primary picture is to walk with the neck bent. Its analysis was made at al-Fātiḥa 1/5.
The root of تقوى is و-ق-ي: to protect, to take shelter. Taqwā is not fearing but guarding oneself; there is a shield inside the word. This distinction was treated in the discussion of al-Baqara.
The root of طاعة is ط-و-ع: to do willingly, to comply from the heart. Its opposite is karh (unwillingly). Inside the word there is the absence of compulsion — in Arabic what is made to be done by force is not called ṭāʿa.
The presence of the third command is striking and has been discussed in the classical commentaries: why "obey me"? The answer given is reasonable and fits the text: obedience to the messenger is directed not to the messenger's person but to the message he brings; because there is no other way of reaching the message. And indeed Noah asks nothing here for himself — no property, no precedence, no reward. It is recorded that elsewhere in the Qurʾān Noah says openly that he asks no wage (al-Shuʿarāʾ 26/109; Yūnus 10/72; Hūd 11/29).
There is a grammatical subtlety here and the classical sources have dwelt on it. The verse does not say "that He forgive you your sins"; it says "that He forgive you of your sins". A min has come in between.
| Reading | Its meaning | Its ground |
|---|---|---|
| Baʿḍiyya (partitive) | "some of your sins" | Min most commonly conveys a part in Arabic |
| Zāʾida (redundant) | "your sins" — the min adds nothing to the sense | In negative and conditional contexts min can be redundant |
| Bayāniyya (explicative) | "the things that are of the kind of sin" | It specifies the kind of what is forgiven |
Those who defend the first reading give this explanation: sins involving the rights of others are a category separate from sins committed against God alone; believing removes the second, it does not by itself drop the first. This is an explanation transmitted in the classical commentaries and it is reasonable; but it does not follow necessarily from the wording of the verse.
A comparison worth recording: the Qurʾān does not use min in a similar place when addressing Muḥammad. Whether this difference is meaningful has been disputed; I issue no definite ruling.
أجل, root أ-ج-ل: the term granted for a matter, a due date. In commerce it is used for the term of a debt. مسمى, root س-م-و/س-م-ي: named, appointed.
The verse here appears to draw a distinction between two kinds of appointed term, and this is the subject of a long dispute in the history of theology:
- What Noah promises: "He will defer you to an appointed term" — that is, if you are not destroyed you will live out your normal span.
- The note that follows: "when God's appointed term comes it is not deferred" — that is, the final limit does not change.
The relation between the two sentences has been read in the classical sources in two principal ways:
The first reading: There are two separate terms — one conditional (the term of destruction), one absolute (the natural term). If the warning is heeded the first does not come about, and one lives until the second.
The second reading: The term is single and unchanging; the expression "deferral" is a language taken from the human point of view. Those who defend this reading say that the term is single in God's knowledge.
The theological depth of this dispute (destiny, the appointed term, divine knowledge) exceeds the limits of this text. What the verse itself does is this: it presents an offer and says in the same sentence that the offer's term is limited. That is, the promise is not open-ended.
The verse ends with a sentence left unfinished. In Arabic law (if) is a conditional particle and normally requires an apodosis: "if you knew… you would do such and such." The apodosis is not said.
In rhetoric this is a deliberate ellipsis (ḥadhf): the withholding of the apodosis leaves the addressee to complete it himself. And every answer that could be completed is wider than one that has been said.
English does the same thing: we say "If you only knew…" and fall silent. The silence is part of the sentence.
Verses 2-4 give the complete structure of an offer: who is speaking (a warner), what is asked (three verbs), what the return is (forgiveness and time), and what the limit is (it ends when the term comes).
What is striking is that the offer is built not on fear but on gain. After the punishment is mentioned in verse 1, Noah's first sentence is not a threat but an offer. This will become clearer still in the rest of the sūra: what is promised in verses 10-12 will be directly worldly abundance.