so that you may travel through it along broad pathways. (20) Noah said, “My Lord, they have disobeyed me and followed those whose wealth and children have only increased them in loss. (21) They have devised a tremendous scheme, (22) saying, ‘Never abandon your gods; never abandon Wadd, Suwa', Yaghuth, Ya'uq, or Nasr.’” (23)

“So that you may travel through it along broad pathways”: that is, wide roads. “Noah said, ‘My Lord, they have disobeyed me’”: they did not answer my call. “And they followed those whose wealth and children have only increased them in loss”: that is, the lowly and the poor followed the leaders and chiefs, whose abundance of wealth and children only increased them in misguidance in this world and punishment in the Hereafter.

“And they devised a tremendous scheme”: that is, a great and immense scheme. The forms kabīr, kibār, and kubbār all convey the same meaning, though the last, with consonantal doubling, is more emphatic.

Scholars differed regarding the meaning of their scheme. Ibn Abbas said: “They made a grave statement.” Al-Dahhak said: “They fabricated lies against Allah and denied His messengers.” It was also said that the chiefs prevented their followers from believing in Noah and incited them (1) to kill him. “And they said” to them, “Never abandon your gods”: that is, do not cease worshipping them. “Nor abandon Wadd”: the people of Medina recited it as “Wudd,” with the waw bearing an u-vowel, while the rest recited it with an a-vowel. “Nor Suwa', Yaghuth, Ya'uq, or Nasr”: these were the names of their gods.

Muhammad ibn Ka'b said: “These were the names of righteous people who lived between Adam and Noah. When they died, they had followers who took them as examples and continued their manner of worship after them. Then Iblis came to them and said, ‘If you were to make images of them, it would make you more energetic and more eager in worship.’ So they did so. Then another generation arose after them, and Iblis said to them, ‘Those before you used to worship them.’ Thus they worshipped them, and this was how the worship of idols began.” (2)

Those images were given these names because they fashioned them in the likeness of those 175/b people who had submitted to Allah.

Abd al-Wahid al-Malihi informed us; Ahmad ibn Abd Allah al-Na'imi informed us; Muhammad ibn Yusuf informed us; Muhammad ibn Isma'il related to us; Ibrahim ibn Musa related to us; Hisham narrated from Ibn Jurayj, and Ata' narrated from Ibn Abbas: “The idols that had been worshipped among Noah’s people came to be worshipped (3) among the Arabs after him (4). As for Wadd, it was