Allah.’ But Adam will refuse and excuse himself. On what basis does he excuse himself? He will say, ‘Allah forbade me to eat from the tree, yet I did eat from it. That act was a sin, and I stand ashamed before Allah. How, then, can I intercede with Him on your behalf?’
The people will then make their way to Noah—peace be upon him—the first messenger sent to humankind. They will remind him of the favor Allah bestowed upon him: that he was the very first messenger ever sent to the people of the earth. Even so, Noah will decline. And why will he decline? Because of his own words: ‘My Lord, my son is indeed of my family; and surely Your promise is true, and You are the most just of judges’ (Q 11:45). Allah had promised to save Noah and his family, yet one of his sons was an unbeliever and was not spared from the flood. When Noah had urged him, ‘My son, ride with us and do not be with the disbelievers,’ the son replied, ‘I shall take refuge on a mountain that will shield me from the water’ (cf. Q 11:42–43). In other words, he refused to board the ark because he thought the waters too immense.
And how immense were they? Allah opened the sky—according to one reading, ‘So We opened the gates of the heaven’ (fa-fataḥnā, Q 54:11), and according to another, ‘So We burst open the gates of the heaven’ (fa-fattaḥnā). It was the greatest opening ever: torrents poured down, heavier than water-skins could hold. Then ‘We caused the earth to burst forth with springs’ (Q 54:12) so abundantly that even the tannūr, the clay oven—usually the driest spot and farthest from water—began to gush. When the sky is pouring with unrelenting rain and the earth is spewing forth fountains, imagine the water level! It rose and rose until it covered the very peaks of the mountains.
Among the disbelievers was a woman carrying her infant. Each time the water climbed higher up the mountainside, she climbed with it. As the level kept rising she kept ascending, until the flood reached the mountain’s summit. First the water came to her ankles, then to her knees, and finally it engulfed her mouth. In a last effort she lifted her child high above her head, hoping to spare him from drowning—yet both mother and child were ultimately submerged, vainly hoping he might be saved from the flood.