Surah Al-Qamar, Ayah 17

The Story of the People of Nuh and the Lesson from it

Allah the Exalted said,

كَذَّبَتْ

(denied) `before your people, O Muhammad,'

قَوْمُ نُوحٍ فَكَذَّبُواْ عَبْدَنَا

(the people of Nuh. They rejected Our servant) means, they denied him categorically and accused him of madness,

وَقَالُواْ مَجْنُونٌ وَازْدُجِرَ

(and said: "A madman!" Wazdujir.) Mujahid said about Wazdujir: "He was driven out accused on account of madness." It was also said that Wazdujir means, he was rebuked, deterred, threatened and warned by his people saying:

لَئِنْ لَّمْ تَنْتَهِ ينُوحُ لَتَكُونَنَّ مِنَ الْمُرْجُومِينَ

("If you do not stop O Nuh, you will be among those who will be stoned.") 26:116 This was said by Ibn Zayd, and it is sound.

وَلَقَدْ يَسَّرْ‌نَا الْقُرْ‌آنَ لِلذِّكْرِ‌ فَهَلْ مِن مُّدَّكِرٍ‌ (And indeed We have made the Qur'an easy for seeking advice. So, is there one to seek advice?....54:17). The word dhikr in the prepositional phrase 'lidh-dhikr' has several shades of meaning: to remember or memorize or by-heart; and to take heed of admonition and warnings. Both these meanings are equally applicable here. Allah has made it easy to memorize the Holy Qur'an. The followers of the previous scriptures were not privileged to memorize their entire book, word by word - whether Torah, Injil or Zabur. It is one of the privileges conferred on Muslims that He has made it easy, even for the tender-aged children, to commit the entire Qur'an to memory, word for word, without missing out a single letter. The Qur'an is preserved in the hearts of hundreds of thousands of Huffaz for the past fourteen hundred years in every age, people and their children of every level, in every region or territory of the world.

The verse could also mean that Allah has made the Qur'an so simple that just as an intellectual and knowledgeable person benefits from its contents, so does a layman, having no expertise in relevant sciences. He too can benefit from its admonition and warnings (at his own level).

Qur’ an is Made Simple to Memorize and to Take Heed; Not for Ijtihad or Istinbat

In this verse the verb یَسَّرنَا yassarna [ We have made easy ] is qualified by the prepositional phrase لِلذِّکرِ lidh-dhikri [ for seeking advice ]. This implies that the Qur'an has been made easy to the extent of memorizing it and paying heed to its advice and warnings, from which all can benefit -whether a learned scholar or an unlearned person, whether young or old. This does not necessarily imply that derivation or deduction of laws and injunctions from the Qur'an is easy for everybody. Ijtihad or Istinbat (deduction) of injunctions from the Qur'an is a science, having its own complex rules. Scholars well-grounded in knowledge have spent years of their life to attain to the position where they could exercise Ijtihad and Istinbat. It is not a field where every ordinary person or layman can play his role.

This indicates the error of some of the deviant people who, on the strength of this statement, wish to pose as mujtahid and derive laws and injunctions with their own reasoning, without acquiring complete and profound knowledge of the Qur'an, and without fully grasping its methodological principles and rules. This is clear deviation!

The leaders of Noah’s community, consumed as they were by false prestige, were not prepared to accept Noah. The result was that they were afflicted by the retribution of God. This punishment came upon them in the shape of a terrible flood. The entire people and their dwellings were submerged in it. But, Noah and his companions, as commanded by God, boarded an ark. This vessel sailed forth and stopped at Mount Judi in the Mount Ararat range. Ararat is in Turkey. The highest mountain of the region, it rises to 16, 853 ft. Certain aeroplane pilots claim that, while flying over the snow-covered Ararat peak, they have seen some boat-like thing caught up in the snow there. If this is correct, then just as the dead body of Pharaoh (of Moses’s period) was extracted from its pyramid in the late nineteenth century and became a sign of God ( 10:92 ), similarly perhaps Noah’s ark may be discovered and become a sign of God for mankind.