The Holy Quran with Five Volume Commentary (Vol 3) — Page 136
CH. 11 42. And he said, 'Embark therein. In the name of Allah be Most HŪD its course and its mooring. My Lord is assuredly Forgiving, Merciful. ' sort of fire-place or oven in which bread is baked; the surface of the ground; the highest part of the earth; any place from which water pours forth, i. e. a fountain etc. ; a place where the water of a valley collects; the shining of the dawn (Lane). Commentary: It should be remembered that the punishment which overtook the people of Noah was not merely due to the gushing forth of the water from a spring. But, as is clear from other passages of the Quran, the real source of the Deluge were the clouds. Rain fell in such abundance that there was water everywhere and as sometimes happens during heavy rain, water also began to gush forth from the depths of the earth, and springs and fountains began to sprout, and thus water, both from the heavens and the earth, flooded the whole land. In 54:12, 13, we read, Then We opened the gates of heaven with water pouring down; and We caused the earth to gush forth with springs; so the waters met for the purpose that had been decreed. Similarly v. 45 below also speaks of water from both the heavens and the earth. In fact, it appears from the Quran that Noah lived in a mountainous country where springs were found in abundance, for in v. 44 Noah's son is represented as PT. 12 وَقَالَ ارْكَبُوا فِيهَا بِسْمِ اللهِ مَجْرَتَهَا وَمُرْسُهَا إِنَّ رَبِّي لَغَفُورٌ رَّحِيمُ saying, I shall soon betake myself to a mountain which will shelter me from the water, which shows that Noah lived at the foot of a mountain. Obviously when floods were rising fast on all sides, his son could not think of going to a far off mountain and taking shelter there. The word (all) does not here mean all the animals of the earth. It only means all such animals as Noah needed. It has been similarly used in a restricted sense in other verses of the Quran as well. For instance, in 27:24, which speaks of the Queen of Sheba, we read, "She has been given everything. " But all commentators are agreed in holding that by "everything" is here meant all that the Queen of Sheba needed and not everything in the literal sense of the word. If she had possessed "everything" in the literal sense of the word, she would have had in her possession everything existing in the world and Solomon dared not have said to her ambassador, Go back to them, for we shall surely come to them with hosts, against which they will have no power, and we shall drive them out from there in disgrace, and they will feel abased (27:38). Moreover, the Ark certainly was not big enough to carry a pair of all kinds of animals found in the world. The addition of the word "two" also shows that it was 1344