Nūḥ 71:26-27 — Noah's imprecation

26. وَقَالَ نُوحٌ رَّبِّ لَا تَذَرْ عَلَى الْأَرْضِ مِنَ الْكَافِرِينَ دَيَّارًا Wa qāla Nūḥun Rabbi lā tadhar ʿalā'l-arḍi mina'l-kāfirīna dayyārā "Noah said: My Lord! Do not leave a single one of the disbelievers on the earth."

27. إِنَّكَ إِن تَذَرْهُمْ يُضِلُّوا عِبَادَكَ وَلَا يَلِدُوا إِلَّا فَاجِرًا كَفَّارًا Innaka in tadharhum yuḍillū ʿibādaka wa lā yalidū illā fājiran kaffārā "For if You leave them they will lead Your servants astray and will beget none but the depraved, the utterly ungrateful."

These two verses must be taken up without softening. A prophet is asking for the destruction of the whole of his own people. There is little like it in the Qurʾān.

The order of treatment will be this: first the words, then the ground of the verse, then its moral frame.

A word that occurs in the Qurʾān only here.

Root د-و-ر: to turn, to go round, to encircle. From the same root come dār (a house — a place enclosed round about), dawr (a turn), dāʾira, dawarān.

Dayyār is on the fayʿāl pattern (originally daywār, becoming dayyār by a sound change). Its meaning: one who dwells in a house, who moves about there. That is, not "a human being" but "one who is settled, who has made the place his home".

The most defining property of the word is that in Arabic it is used only in negative sentences: mā fi'l-dāri dayyār — "there is not a soul in the house". Like the English "not a living soul", it is an idiomatic pattern for conveying total emptiness.

This makes the choice of the word meaningful. When Noah says "leave no one", he uses the most settled word Arabic has for conveying emptiness. And the sense of "house" at the root of the word adds an image to the sentence: let no one remain dwelling in his house on the earth.

An observation: in the last verse of this same sūra Noah will pray for "whoever entered my house as a believer" (man dakhala baytī muʾminan). Between the two verses "house" occurs twice — one to be emptied, the other to be protected. This is an observation resting not on unity of root but on unity of concept.

The scope of the prayer is determined by these two words, and a question arises here: does Noah mean the whole earth, or his own region?

The word ارض means in Arabic both "the earth" and "soil, land, region". Both uses occur in the Qurʾān. The wording of the verse is therefore open to both readings:

• The whole of the earth → the flood is universal.
• The land where Noah's people lived → the flood is regional.

This distinction is the grammatical leg of the dispute about the flood touched on at the beginning of the sūra, and the Qurʾān does not close the question. I make no preference.

One further note: in making this prayer Noah says "of the disbelievers". That is, the object of the prayer is not "human beings" but those carrying a particular attribute. Those of his own people who believed are outside this sentence — in verse 28 he will pray for them separately.

Noah does not leave his prayer without a ground. Verse 27 offers a ground with a conditional sentence: "if You leave them…"

Two consequences are enumerated:

1. يُضِلُّوا عِبَادَكَ — "they will lead Your servants astray." That is, the matter is not their own condition; it is their effect on others. In verse 24 this was recorded as something already done ("they have led many astray"). Here it is said that it will continue.

Note: it says "Your servants". That is, the party to be protected is those who believe.

2. وَلَا يَلِدُوا إِلَّا فَاجِرًا كَفَّارًا — "they will beget none but the depraved and the ungrateful."

This is the heaviest sentence in the verse and it must be read very carefully.

فاجر, root ف-ج-ر: to split, to overflow, to tear through a limit. The concrete sense of the root is water's cleaving its bed and overflowing; from the same root comes fajr (the dawn's cleaving of the darkness). The analysis of this root was made in Sūrat ʿAbasa (80/42, al-kafaratu'l-fajara); I rely on that. Fujūr is the tearing of the moral limit.

كفار, an intensive on the faʿʿāl pattern: utterly ungrateful, persistent in denial. (The same pattern as ghaffār in verse 10 — one an excess in forgiving, the other an excess in denying.)

No — and this is something that must be said openly.

First: this sentence is not God's verdict but Noah's ground. The verse occurs inside Noah's prayer. The Qurʾān is not laying down a rule here; it is relating an assessment a prophet offered to his Lord.

Second: the Qurʾān's general principle is the opposite of this. "No bearer of a burden bears the burden of another" (al-Anʿām 6/164; al-Isrāʾ 17/15; Fāṭir 35/18; al-Zumar 39/7; al-Najm 53/38). This principle is among the rulings the Qurʾān repeats most. No one is under sentence because of the family he was born into.

Third: the Qurʾān's own example within the story of Noah refutes it. Noah's son did not believe (Hūd 11/42-43) — that is, a believing father has an unbelieving son. An example in the reverse direction is within the same story too. Lineage does not bequeath faith; nor does it bequeath denial.

What, then, does Noah's sentence say? There are two readings and both fit the text:

• An observation resting on knowledge. Noah is expressing an outcome that has been made known to him. The Qurʾān records that Noah was told: "None of your people will believe now except those who have already believed" (Hūd 11/36). This notice shows that Noah had certain knowledge in his hands. His prayer comes after that knowledge.
• An inference resting on long observation. Noah is a preacher who has seen the same outcome across generations. His sentence is the expression of that observation: this order reproduces itself.

The second reading takes the sentence out of being a genetic claim and turns it into a social observation: what determines what a child will become is not his lineage but the order he is born into and in which no alternative remains. Unless this order is broken, the outcome does not change.

In my judgement the second reading fits the text and the Qurʾān as a whole better; but this preference is not binding.

Now let us come to the real question: how is a prophet's making such a prayer to be assessed?

Four elements have to be set side by side.

1. The length of the span. The Qurʾān says Noah stayed among his people "a thousand years less fifty" (al-ʿAnkabūt 29/14). That figure is not in this sūra; but the variation of method the sūra describes (night and day, open and secret, offer and proof) is the mark of a long process. The prayer does not come after the first refusal.

2. Knowledge. Mentioned above: at Hūd 11/36 Noah was told that no one would believe any longer. That is, the prayer was made after the possibility had closed. Such a prayer was not made while the guidance of a single person was still possible.

3. Noah's own position. The Qurʾān records his state in another place too: "He called upon his Lord: I am overcome, so help me" (al-Qamar 54/10). That is, this is not an imprecation made from a position of power; it is the cry of a defeated man. The difference is morally decisive.

4. And most important: Noah's prayers are not automatically counted correct. The Qurʾān shows this openly within the same story. When Noah said of his drowning son "My Lord! My son is of my family; and Your promise is the truth", the answer is: "O Noah! He is not of your family; what he did was not right. Do not ask Me for what you have no knowledge of; I counsel you not to be among the ignorant" (Hūd 11/45-46). And Noah's answer is: "My Lord! I take refuge with You from asking You for what I have no knowledge of" (Hūd 11/47).

This is the most important balance the Qurʾān sets up within itself. One prayer of Noah's was granted (in this sūra), and one prayer was openly refused and he himself was warned (in Hūd). That is, no rule such as "a prophet prayed, therefore it is right" is set up by the Qurʾān.

In reading these two verses one must remember that the same prophet received the warning "do not ask Me for what you have no knowledge of" about another of his prayers. The prayer Noah makes here, by contrast, is made upon something he knew — that is where the difference lies.

Note: the root ع-و-ذ and Noah's sentence of taking refuge at Hūd 11/47 were treated in the discussion of Sūrat al-Falaq (113/1); I rely on that.

There is no "licence to imprecate" that can be drawn from these two verses, and none should be. The conditions the sūra itself sets up — an effort spread over centuries, every method exhausted, and certain knowledge of the outcome — do not come about for any human being. The third above all: no one has certain knowledge of who will believe.

The Qurʾān's general command on this matter is clear and runs in the opposite direction: "Call to the way of your Lord with wisdom and beautiful admonition; and dispute with them in the best manner" (al-Naḥl 16/125). And what was said to the Prophet when he wished to pass judgement on those who opposed him is: "Nothing of this matter is yours" (Āl ʿImrān 3/128).

What these verses give the reader is not a permission but a sense of scale: for a human being to give up hope of another, he would need to have what Noah had in his hands — a divine notice. No one has that notice.