كَذَّبَتْ قَوْمُ نُوحٍ ٱلْمُرْسَلِينَ
The people of Noah impugned the apostles
إِذْ قَالَ لَهُمْ أَخُوهُمْ نُوحٌ أَلَا تَتَّقُونَ
when Noah, their brother, said to them, ‘Will you not be wary [of Allah]?
إِنِّى لَكُمْ رَسُولٌ أَمِينٌۭ
Indeed I am a trusted apostle [sent] to you.
فَٱتَّقُوا۟ ٱللَّهَ وَأَطِيعُونِ
So be wary of Allah and obey me.
وَمَآ أَسْـَٔلُكُمْ عَلَيْهِ مِنْ أَجْرٍ ۖ إِنْ أَجْرِىَ إِلَّا عَلَىٰ رَبِّ ٱلْعَٰلَمِينَ
I do not ask you any reward for it; my reward lies only with the Lord of all the worlds.
فَٱتَّقُوا۟ ٱللَّهَ وَأَطِيعُونِ
So be wary of Allah and obey me.’
۞ قَالُوٓا۟ أَنُؤْمِنُ لَكَ وَٱتَّبَعَكَ ٱلْأَرْذَلُونَ
They said, ‘Shall we believe in you, when it is the riffraff who follow you?’
قَالَ وَمَا عِلْمِى بِمَا كَانُوا۟ يَعْمَلُونَ
He said, ‘What do I know as to what they used to do?
إِنْ حِسَابُهُمْ إِلَّا عَلَىٰ رَبِّى ۖ لَوْ تَشْعُرُونَ
Their reckoning is only with my Lord, should you be aware.
وَمَآ أَنَا۠ بِطَارِدِ ٱلْمُؤْمِنِينَ
I will not drive away the faithful.
إِنْ أَنَا۠ إِلَّا نَذِيرٌۭ مُّبِينٌۭ
I am just a manifest warner.’
قَالُوا۟ لَئِن لَّمْ تَنتَهِ يَٰنُوحُ لَتَكُونَنَّ مِنَ ٱلْمَرْجُومِينَ
They said, ‘Noah, if you do not desist, you will certainly be stoned [to death].’
قَالَ رَبِّ إِنَّ قَوْمِى كَذَّبُونِ
He said, ‘My Lord! Indeed my people have impugned me.
فَٱفْتَحْ بَيْنِى وَبَيْنَهُمْ فَتْحًۭا وَنَجِّنِى وَمَن مَّعِىَ مِنَ ٱلْمُؤْمِنِينَ
So judge conclusively between me and them, and deliver me and the faithful who are with me.’
فَأَنجَيْنَٰهُ وَمَن مَّعَهُۥ فِى ٱلْفُلْكِ ٱلْمَشْحُونِ
Thereupon We delivered him and those who were with him in the laden ark.
ثُمَّ أَغْرَقْنَا بَعْدُ ٱلْبَاقِينَ
Then We drowned the rest.
إِنَّ فِى ذَٰلِكَ لَءَايَةًۭ ۖ وَمَا كَانَ أَكْثَرُهُم مُّؤْمِنِينَ
There is indeed a sign in that; but most of them do not have faith.
وَإِنَّ رَبَّكَ لَهُوَ ٱلْعَزِيزُ ٱلرَّحِيمُ
Indeed your Lord is the All-mighty, the All-merciful.
English translation: Ali Quli Qarai
With Nūḥ the sūra begins its rapid sequence of five messenger-stories cast in an almost identical mould, and the sources note the pattern from the outset. The people of Nūḥ denied the messengers — plural, though they denied only Nūḥ — draws unanimous comment: Ṭabarsī, Ṭūsī and al-Mīzān all explain that denying one messenger is denying all, since "the messengers' call is one and their word agreed upon tawḥīd" (al-Mīzān, citing 4:150). Two of the sources add the Imāmī gloss from al-Bāqir — preserved in al-Mīzān's narration section — that "the messengers" here means Nūḥ and the prophets between him and Ādam, ten forefathers all prophets, since Nūḥ himself came a thousand-less-fifty years to a people who had denied those earlier prophets.
The refrain of the messenger (106–110). Nūḥ's self-description — your brother… a trustworthy messenger… I ask of you no wage; my reward is only with the Lord of the worlds — is read the same way by all: "brother" is kinship not religion (Ṭabarsī, Ṭūsī, al-Mīzān); amīn means one who faithfully discharges the trust of the message (Ṭūsī); and the twice-repeated fear God and obey me is deliberately non-repetitive, grounded first in his trustworthiness and then in his asking no wage — al-Mīzān calls each "an independent ground obliging obedience," and notes the shift to Lord of the worlds is a pointed assertion of tawḥīd against a pagan theology of many "lords."
"Shall we believe when the lowest follow you?" (111–115). This is the pericope's distinctive turn, and the sources converge remarkably. On al-ardhalūn, Ṭabarsī lists the classic glosses (the poor, the weavers and cobblers), al-Mīzān analyses that the chiefs "saw honour in wealth and numbers" and so despised slaves, the poor and craftsmen (cross-linking Nūḥ 21), and al-Qummī and al-Baḥrānī simply gloss them as the poor (al-fuqarāʾ). Nūḥ's reply — what knowledge have I of what they did? their reckoning is with my Lord… I will not drive away the believers — is expounded by Ṭūsī into a small ethic: to cast off the believers to win the chiefs would "humiliate the people of faith, itself a wrong," and their past faults, if any, are wiped away by belief; al-Mīzān adds that the second clause (I am only a clear warner) grounds the first — his task is warning, not spying out men's pasts to reckon them.
The judgement and the ship (116–122). Threatened with stoning if he does not "cease," Nūḥ prays judge (iftaḥ) between me and them a judgement, and deliver me and the believers with me. Ṭabarsī and Ṭūsī gloss fatḥ as the decisive decree (the judge is fattāḥ, "who opens the way to the ruling"), and al-Qummī and al-Baḥrānī (from al-Bāqir) render it plainly decree between me and them a decree. al-Mīzān reads it more vividly as a plea to "open a space" parting Nūḥ from his people — a kināya for the punishment that destroys only the corrupt, confirmed by deliver me and the believers. All gloss the laden ship (al-fulk al-mashḥūn) as filled with the believers and the pairs of creatures; al-Qummī and al-Baḥrānī add al-Bāqir's note that it was "the fully-fitted ship, finished, with nothing left but to launch it." The story seals, as each will, on most of them were not believers; your Lord is the Almighty, the Merciful — Ṭabarsī and Ṭūsī reading the two names precisely: Almighty in the drowning, Merciful in the deliverance.