And in Sūrat al-Ḥadīd He says: “We sent Noah and Abraham, and placed in their descendants prophethood and the Book; some of them are rightly guided, yet many of them are defiantly sinful.” (al-Ḥadīd 26)

He likewise says in Sūrat at-Taḥrīm: “Allah sets forth a parable for those who disbelieve: the wife of Noah and the wife of Lot. They were married to two of Our righteous servants, but they betrayed them; their husbands could do nothing for them against Allah. It was said: ‘Enter the Fire along with those who enter.’” (at-Taḥrīm 10)

As for the substance of what transpired between him and his people—gathered from the Qur’an, the Sunnah, and the transmitted reports—we have already cited Ibn ʿAbbās’ statement that between Adam and Noah there were ten generations, all of them upon Islam; al-Bukhārī records this report.

We also mentioned that the word qarn (“generation”) may signify a people or a span of time, as explained earlier.

After those righteous generations, events occurred that eventually led the people of that era to worship idols. The reason for this is related by al-Bukhārī, through Ibn Jurayj from ʿAṭāʾ from Ibn ʿAbbās, in his commentary on the verse: “They said, ‘Do not abandon your gods; do not abandon Wadd, nor Suwāʿ, nor Yaghūth, Yaʿūq, and Nasr.’” (Nūḥ 23). Ibn ʿAbbās said: “These were the names of righteous men from among Noah’s people. When they died, Satan inspired their people to erect monuments at the places where they used to sit and to name those monuments after them. They did so, but the images were not worshipped. When that generation died and knowledge had faded, the monuments came to be worshipped.”

Ibn ʿAbbās added: “These idols that existed among Noah’s people later passed down to the Arabs.” The same was said by ʿIkrimah, al-Ḍaḥḥāk, Qatādah, and Muḥammad ibn Isḥāq.

Ibn Jarīr reports in his Tafsīr: Ibn Ḥumayd narrated to us, saying that Mihrān related from Sufyān, from Mūsā, from Muḥammad ibn Qays, who said: “They were righteous people who lived between Adam and Noah and had followers who emulated them. When they died, their followers said, ‘If only we were to depict them, it would make us more eager in worship when we remember them.’ So they depicted them. When those followers died and another generation arose, Iblīs insinuated to the latter: ‘Your predecessors used to worship them and through them they sought rain.’ Hence they began to worship them.”

Ibn Abī Ḥātim also transmits from ʿUrwah ibn az-Zubayr that he said: “Wadd, Yaghūth, Yaʿūq, Suwāʿ, and Nasr were sons of Adam; Wadd was the eldest of them and the most dutiful to his father.”