ثُمَّ إِنِّي دَعَوْتُهُمْ جِهَارًا · ثُمَّ إِنِّي أَعْلَنتُ لَهُمْ وَأَسْرَرْتُ لَهُمْ إِسْرَارًا
"Then I called them openly. Then I both proclaimed to them aloud and spoke to them in deepest secret."
These two verses are the most practical part of the sūra. Noah reports that he did not persist in a single method.
In the classical commentaries a three-stage sequence of preaching is drawn from these verses, and the order of the sequence is disputed. The clearest table that emerges from the wording of the verses is this:
| Stage | Expression | Form |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Verse 5: daʿawtu qawmī laylan wa nahārā | A general call — emphasis on duration |
| 2 | Verse 8: daʿawtuhum jihārā | Openly, before everyone |
| 3 | Verse 9: aʿlantu … wa asrartu | Both open and secret — the two together |
That is, the third stage is not a new method but the combining of two methods. It is possible to read it thus: the messenger first makes a general call; when no response comes he makes it public; when that too fails he opens two channels at once — both address to the group and one-to-one speech.
On the order there are also different readings in the classical sources. Some exegetes hold that the secret call came first and the open call afterwards, and count the ordering in verse 9 as one of scope rather than of time. The ground supporting this view is that the Qurʾān records a similar order in Muḥammad's preaching too ("And warn your nearest kin", al-Shuʿarāʾ 26/214 — from the narrow circle to the wide). I make no definite preference; the wording of the verse is open to both readings.
Both verses begin with thumma. In Arabic thumma, unlike fa, is a conjunction that leaves an interval: "then, after some time has passed".
Had it been fa, the acts would have followed one another directly; thumma puts time between them. That is, Noah does not change his method at once; he tries each method at length, then passes to the next. The two thummas are the only trace in the text of those nine hundred and fifty years the sūra never states.
Root ج-ه-ر: to raise the voice, to bring into the open, to say without concealing. From the same root come jahr (recitation aloud — the "audible" recitation in prayer is this word) and jahīr (loud-voiced).
The root's primary field is sound, but in Arabic it is used for "making visible to the eye" as well. Both uses occur in the Qurʾān: "Though you speak the word aloud…" (Ṭāhā 20/7) and "until we see God plainly" (al-Baqara 2/55; al-Nisāʾ 4/153).
The word here is accusative and indefinite; it can be read as a circumstantial accusative or as a cognate accusative. The sense is close on either reading: "I called them out in the open".
Root ع-ل-ن: the coming into the open of what was hidden. ʿAlāniya is the opposite of secrecy. The Qurʾān uses these two words as a pair a great deal: "they spend in secret and in the open" (al-Baqara 2/274; Ibrāhīm 14/31; al-Raʿd 13/22).
The difference between jihār and iʿlān is fine: jihār looks more to loudness of voice, iʿlān more to the announcing itself. It is like the difference in English between "I shouted it out" and "I announced it".
Root س-ر-ر: to conceal. Sirr (a secret), sarīra (what is kept within), isrār (keeping secret) are all from this root.
A note on the language: from the same root comes surūr (joy) as well, and the lexicographers explain this relation by "joy's touching the hidden place of the heart". I give this explanation as a transmitted report.
Again there is a cognate accusative: asrartu … isrārā. That is, the secrecy is not casual but deliberate and intense.
When the two verses are read together a principle of method emerges, and this principle is concrete for the present too.
The limit of the open call is this: the person spoken to before a crowd becomes the representative of his own group. His answer is now shaped not by himself but by those watching. To accept means to take a step back in front of everyone — and most people shrink less from changing an opinion than from changing it before an audience.
This is what the secret call does: it separates the person from the audience. A person spoken to one-to-one can think on his own behalf. The four defences described in verse 7 — pride above all — largely presuppose an audience. When the audience is removed, the cost of the defence falls.
I present this as a reading I draw from the verse, not as a transmitted report. But the arrangement of the sūra supports this reading: pride is mentioned in verse 7, the secret call comes in verse 9.
Note: the "secrecy" here is not hiding or covering the message. In the same verse Noah says that he proclaimed as well. What is hidden is not the message but the setting of the conversation.