Noah's Flood in the Quran

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- ahmed_10
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Noah's Flood in the Quran
OP - August 04, 2011, 10:01 PM

I've always thought that Noah's Flood in the Quran was a global flood, but I've seen a video where Adnan Rashid is describing it as a local flood.

My questions are:

1) Does the Quran specify if the flood was global or local? If it doesn't, which view has more evidence?

2) If it was a local flood, is it scientifically possible that it could have happened as described in the Quran?
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Re: Noah's Flood in the Quran
Reply #1 - August 04, 2011, 10:27 PM

it was a tsunami

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Re: Noah's Flood in the Quran
Reply #2 - August 06, 2011, 02:43 AM

bumpity bump i really need an answer to this!
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Re: Noah's Flood in the Quran
Reply #3 - August 06, 2011, 05:53 AM

There were plenty of flood myths and flood events within the region at the time (mainly because certain areas were prone to significant flooding every few centuries).

The story seems awfully similar to this one at times:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilgamesh_flood_myth

points of reference:

Quote
Utnapishtim tells Gilgamesh a secret story that begins in the old city of Shuruppak on the banks of the Euphrates River.

The "great gods" Anu, Enlil, Ninurta, Ennugi, and Ea were sworn to secrecy about their plan to cause the flood.

Ea commanded Utnapishtim to demolish his house and build a boat, regardless of the cost, to keep living beings alive.

The boat must have equal dimensions with corresponding width and length and be covered over like Apsu boats.

He asked Ea what he should say to the city elders and the population.

Ea tells him to say that Enlil has rejected him and he can no longer reside in the city or set foot in Enlil's territory.

He loaded "all the living beings that I had."

His relatives and craftsmen, and "all the beasts and animals of the field" boarded the boat.

On the seventh day he released a dove which flew away, but came back to him. He released a swallow, but it also came back to him.

He released a raven which was able to eat and scratch, and did not circle back to the boat.

He then sent his livestock out in various directions.

He sacrificed a sheep and offered incense at a mountainous ziggurat where he placed 14 sacrificial vessels and poured reeds, cedar, and myrtle into the fire.

The gods smelled the sweet odor of the sacrificial animal and gathered like flies over the sacrifice.

Essentially, the gods create a flood and tell a man to create a boat of certain sizes and place all the animals and his family inside it. Theres a large flood and later on specific birds are sent out to find land once the water levels fell. He then sends all the animals out in different directions and sacrifices some animals to the gods.

The bible and the quran tend to be displaying the same story, only we should remember that the early jews had a history of creating parables, where as the muslims simply copied what they found along the way; So by default the qurans version is more accurate and closer to being realistic, but is it actually true? apparently not, It appears to be plagiarized from poetry.
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Re: Noah's Flood in the Quran
Reply #4 - August 06, 2011, 06:27 AM

Quote from: ahmed_10 on August 04, 2011, 10:01 PM
I've always thought that Noah's Flood in the Quran was a global flood, but I've seen a video where Adnan Rashid is describing it as a local flood.

My questions are:

1) Does the Quran specify if the flood was global or local? If it doesn't, which view has more evidence?

2) If it was a local flood, is it scientifically possible that it could have happened as described in the Quran?

I wouldn't say it specifies, more that it alludes to it by claiming everybody but noah and his family and the animals survived and it was their job to repopulate the earth.

"And Noah said: `O my Lord! Leave not of the Unbelievers, a single one on earth! For if Thou dost leave (any of them), they will but mislead Thy devotees, and they will breed none but wicked ungrateful ones.'" 71:26-27

When describing the flood the quran says things like "we caused the earth to spew" , and a global flood is all that it alludes to.

Calling it a local one is the new islamic way of matching scientific findings in order to try to sell the quran as some science book that knew all this shit.

I bet you not one muslim scholar prior to archeological findings that established it was a local flood, well I bet not one of them would have called it anything but global before then.

Inhale the good shit, exhale the bullshit.
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Re: Noah's Flood in the Quran
Reply #5 - August 06, 2011, 09:07 AM

Quote from: mighty_cats on August 06, 2011, 05:53 AM
There were plenty of flood myths and flood events within the region at the time (mainly because certain areas were prone to significant flooding every few centuries).

The story seems awfully similar to this one at times:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilgamesh_flood_myth

points of reference:

Essentially, the gods create a flood and tell a man to create a boat of certain sizes and place all the animals and his family inside it. Theres a large flood and later on specific birds are sent out to find land once the water levels fell. He then sends all the animals out in different directions and sacrifices some animals to the gods.

The bible and the quran tend to be displaying the same story, only we should remember that the early jews had a history of creating parables, where as the muslims simply copied what they found along the way; So by default the qurans version is more accurate and closer to being realistic, but is it actually true? apparently not, It appears to be plagiarized from poetry.

Good one, Mighty Cats ,im glad to know about this.

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Re: Noah's Flood in the Quran
Reply #6 - August 06, 2011, 09:35 AM

Like many references to Biblical stories that are found in the Qur'an - the Qur'an does not go into great detail. It assumes the reader is aware of the story in the Bible. I have no doubt that the Qur'an meant a global flood as per the Bible. But the reference in the Qur'an the leaves room for Muslims to wriggle out of it.

When able to do so, Muslims will always reject any notion of the absurd and claim the Qur'an agrees with Science.

Only when unable to do so - such as in talking ants and birds - will they reluctantly admit to it being a miracle of some sort saying - well Allah can do anything he wants.
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Re: Noah's Flood in the Quran
Reply #7 - August 06, 2011, 10:45 AM

Quote from: Hassan on August 06, 2011, 09:35 AM
Like many references to Biblical stories that are found in the Qur'an - the Qur'an does not go into great detail. It assumes the reader is aware of the story in the Bible.

Do you know why is that? The Koran is meant to be dealing with Jewish and Christains mainly. It says it is an update of the same software and if you haven't bought the older versions, you cannot buy the lastest one - though the old ones are totally different and no longer valid.

The Koran CANNOT be read and understood without extra understanding of Biblical referernces or what has become known as Tafseer. I dare anyone to read the translated the Koran leaving anything outside the [] mark, which are the added bits to it, and see if he or she can understand anything. The same goes for anyone reading the actual Koran without any knownledge of Tafseer, not only because the Koran jumps from one topic into another and talks about everything and nothing in particular but meanings too.

According to what I have been taught, the flood was global. One of the names of Ka'ba is el bait el ateeq (البيت العتيق) and the word atteeq means freed. Many scholars say it was freed from Noah's flood when it didn't leave any place uncover by water. On the other hand, Al-Judy, an un-Arabic word in the Arabic Quran, where Noah's Ark anchored is a mountain in Turkey. These two places are very far apart and Mecca is 50 km away from the nearest sea, the Red Sea, and water came from the earth too. The name Ateeq would have been useless if many other places were too left unmolested by Allah's flood.
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Re: Noah's Flood in the Quran
Reply #8 - August 06, 2011, 12:29 PM

Quote
The same goes for anyone reading the actual Koran without any knownledge of Tafseer, not only because the Koran jumps from one topic into another and talks about everything and nothing in particular but meanings too.

Yup, Whabbist.... Especially the chapter about Marium and Isa

I tell ya what, I have had some muslims try to tell me that there are many Aarons (musa's bro) and get really pissed when I bring this up, how the mother of isa suddenly gets referred to as Mirium, Musa's and Aaron's sister. WHICH came several thousand years before Isa and his mom

As you said, you have to know and understand the bible in order to point out some of
this plagerized bullshit

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Re: Noah's Flood in the Quran
Reply #9 - August 06, 2011, 01:02 PM

Quote from: Jinn and Tonic on August 06, 2011, 12:29 PM

I tell ya what, I have had some muslims try to tell me that there are many Aarons (musa's bro) and get really pissed when I bring this up, how the mother of isa suddenly gets referred to as Mirium, Musa's and Aaron's sister. WHICH came several thousand years before Isa and his mom

WOW I have never noticed that before even though it is standing before my naked eyes. Thank you very much Jinn and Tonic.
Guess how many times Musa's name has been mentioned in the Koran? 136 times, Isa's 25 times - and the King Fahad's Koran has 604 pages which mathematically means that either of the two names is mentioned at least once in every page in a quarter of the 'progressive' Koran.
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Re: Noah's Flood in the Quran
Reply #10 - August 06, 2011, 01:22 PM

You are MOST welcome, Whabbist. you are the first one to thank me for pointing this out!
Everyone else gets really pissed when I do LOL

I cannot BELIEVE I said shahada and passed right over this too!

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Re: Noah's Flood in the Quran
Reply #11 - August 07, 2011, 10:30 AM

Quote from: Whabbist on August 06, 2011, 10:45 AM

According to what I have been taught, the flood was global. One of the names of Ka'ba is el bait el ateeq (البيت العتيق) and the word atteeq means freed. Many scholars say it was freed from Noah's flood when it didn't leave any place uncover by water.

Heh, all this time I took ateeq to mean old/ancient, this is the meaning of the word now... just like in Fairouz songs about il shaware3 il atee2ah.

Teach us to care and not to care / Teach us to sit still.
What do we live for; if it is not to make life less difficult to each other
You are the music while the music lasts.
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Re: Noah's Flood in the Quran
Reply #12 - August 07, 2011, 10:33 AM

Well they may have meant sister as in sista... I have all kind of muslimas call me sista

Teach us to care and not to care / Teach us to sit still.
What do we live for; if it is not to make life less difficult to each other
You are the music while the music lasts.
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Re: Noah's Flood in the Quran
Reply #13 - August 07, 2011, 11:02 AM

Quote from: Fara7 on August 07, 2011, 10:30 AM
Heh, all this time I took ateeq to mean old/ancient, this is the meaning of the word now... just like in Fairouz songs about il shaware3 il atee2ah.

yeah, but the word in etymology does mean old/ancient too. You have :
A- Atqo rakaba (عتق رقبة ، فهي معتوقة أو عَتيقَة) the word is used here as a compound noun and it means to free
B- Aatq (العاتق وهو موضع القميص من المنكبين ) the word is used here as a noun in the case of subject, and it's nuance has shifted a bit. Also you have the symbolic use, meaning responsibility (أخذ على عاتقه التحقيقَ في الأمر : أي المسؤولية)
C- Aatq (فتاة عاتِق) here the word is used adjectivally to mean a pre-pubescent girl.
D- Aatq ( فرس عاتِق) here again the word is used adjectivally to mean a fast female-horse/mare.
E- Aatq or Mo'ataq (تمر معتق أو عاتق) which means old
So you see there are many uses of the word and mainly the context tells us about which one, but not always which then we'd have what's lingusitcally known as lexical ambiguity. In this case, I referred to what scholars of tafseer say, not linguists, because they use history/hadith to back up their views.

Quote from: Fara7 on August 07, 2011, 10:33 AM
Well they may have meant sister as in sista... I have all kind of muslimas call me sista

Sister is pronounced /sista/ with the schwa sound at the end in BrE as well as in NAmE with their different type of schwa. Or are you referring to sisterhood? sorry I didn't get the point fara7
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Re: Noah's Flood in the Quran
Reply #14 - August 07, 2011, 11:27 AM

Yes was referring to sisterhood, and I was being sarcastic

Teach us to care and not to care / Teach us to sit still.
What do we live for; if it is not to make life less difficult to each other
You are the music while the music lasts.
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Re: Noah's Flood in the Quran
Reply #15 - August 07, 2011, 11:30 AM

Quote from: Fara7 on August 07, 2011, 11:27 AM
Yes was referring to sisterhood, and I was being sarcastic

oh right.

P.S. apparently it is true then that foreigners don't get British sarcasm.
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Re: Noah's Flood in the Quran
Reply #16 - August 07, 2011, 11:33 AM

but am a foreigner too!

Teach us to care and not to care / Teach us to sit still.
What do we live for; if it is not to make life less difficult to each other
You are the music while the music lasts.
T.S.Eliot
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Re: Noah's Flood in the Quran
Reply #17 - August 07, 2011, 11:37 AM

Yep but lived long enough there to qualify for the Anglicised/Britishnised of the last two decades lol

P.S. we are derailing now, aren't we?
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Re: Noah's Flood in the Quran
Reply #18 - August 07, 2011, 12:13 PM

For an attempt to explain the flood scientificly: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Sea_deluge_theory

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Re: Noah's Flood in the Quran
Reply #19 - August 08, 2011, 06:33 PM

Quote from: Jinn and Tonic on August 06, 2011, 12:29 PM

Yup, Whabbist.... Especially the chapter about Marium and Isa

I tell ya what, I have had some muslims try to tell me that there are many Aarons (musa's bro) and get really pissed when I bring this up, how the mother of isa suddenly gets referred to as Mirium, Musa's and Aaron's sister. WHICH came several thousand years before Isa and his mom

As you said, you have to know and understand the bible in order to point out some of
this plagerized bullshit

WHOA! Do you have any references please?
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Re: Noah's Flood in the Quran
Reply #20 - August 08, 2011, 09:20 PM

whatever kind of flood it was, im sure other people had boats/arks/ships must have survived too.. so there's no way not 'one survivor could be left'
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Re: Noah's Flood in the Quran
Reply #21 - August 08, 2011, 09:29 PM

btw although this is aimed at the Bible - it's still brilliant

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_BzWUuZN5w

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLr5vl-n0Bo
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Re: Noah's Flood in the Quran
Reply #22 - August 08, 2011, 09:50 PM

That's hilarious!
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