Surah Araf ayat 64 Tafsir Quran 7:64

﴿فَكَذَّبُوهُ فَأَنجَيْنَاهُ وَالَّذِينَ مَعَهُ فِي الْفُلْكِ وَأَغْرَقْنَا الَّذِينَ كَذَّبُوا بِآيَاتِنَا ۚ إِنَّهُمْ كَانُوا قَوْمًا عَمِينَ﴾
[ الأعراف: 64]

7:64 But they denied him, so We saved him and those who were with him in the ship. And We drowned those who denied Our signs. Indeed, they were a blind people.

But they denied him and so We delivered him and those with him from drowning in the Ark in the ship and We drowned those who denied Our signs by means of the Flood. Truly they were a people blind to the truth.

Yet they disbelieved him, refused to give him credence and thought he was conveying a false message In consequence, We rescued him together with those who willingly accepted his message. We put them on board ship -the Ark- and We drowned, in the flood, those who drowned themselves in sin and denied Our signs. Their minds eyes were indeed blind

أَوَ عَجِبْتُمْ ( "Do you wonder..." ), do not wonder because of this.
Surely, it is not strange that Allah sends down revelation to a man among you as mercy, kindness and compassion for you, so that he warns you that you may avoid Allah's torment by associating none with Him, وَلَعَلَّكُمْ تُرْحَمُونَ ( "and that you may receive (His ) mercy.") Allah said, فَكَذَّبُوهُ ( But they belied him ) but they insisted on rejecting and opposing him, and only a few of them believed in him, as Allah stated in another Ayah.
Allah said next, فَأَنجَيْنَـهُ وَالَّذِينَ مَعَهُ فِي الْفُلْكِ ( So We saved him and those along with him in the Fulk ) the ark, وَأَغْرَقْنَا الَّذِينَ كَذَّبُواْ بِـَايَـتِنَآ ( And We drowned those who belied Our Ayat.
) Allah said in another Ayah, مِّمَّا خَطِيئَـتِهِمْ أُغْرِقُواْ فَأُدْخِلُواْ نَاراً فَلَمْ يَجِدُواْ لَهُمْ مِّن دُونِ اللَّهِ أَنصَاراً ( Because of their sins they were drowned, then they were admitted into the Fire.
And they found none to help them instead of Allah. ) 71:25 Allah said, إِنَّهُمْ كَانُواْ قَوْماً عَمِينَ ( They were indeed a blind people. ) meaning, blind from the Truth, unable to recognize it or find their way to it.
Here, Allah said that He has taken revenge from His enemies and saved His Messenger and those who believed in him, while destroying their disbelieving enemies.
Allah said in a another Ayah, إِنَّا لَنَنصُرُ رُسُلَنَا ( Verily, We will indeed make victorious Our Messengers ) 40:51.
This is Allah's Sunnah ( way ) with His servants, in this life and the Hereafter, that the good end, victory and triumph is for those who fear Him.
For example, Allah destroyed the people of Nuh, and saved Nuh and his believing followers.
Ibn Wahb said that he was told that Ibn `Abbas said that eighty men were saved with Nuh in the ship, one of them was Jurhum, who spoke Arabic.
Ibn Abi Hatim collected this statement, which was also narrated with a continuous chain of narration from Ibn `Abbas.

(7:64) But they charged him with falsehood. Thereupon We delivered Noah and those who were with him in the Ark, and caused those who rejected Our signs as false to be drowned. *50 Surely they were a blind folk.

But they denied him, so We saved meaning

*50).
An uninitiated reader of the Qur'an may, mistakenly conceive that the mission of each Prophet - to call his people to God - would have finished after the few attempts they made in that connection.
Some people might even entertain a rather simplistic image of their mission.
It might be thought that a Prophet would have suddenly risen and proclaimed to his people that he had been designated by God as a Prophet.
This would have been followed by the raising of objections to that claim.
Subsequently, the Prophet concerned would have explained the matter and might have removed their misgivings.
The people would have stuck to their position, would have rejected the Prophet's claim and called him a liar.
whereupon God must have visited that people with punishment.

The fact of the matter, however, is that the Qur'an has narrated in just a few lines a story that was worked out over a long period of time.
The brevity of the Qur'anic description owes itself to the fact that the Qur'an is not interested per se in story-telling; that its narration and purpose are didactic.
Hence, while recounting a historical event, the Qur'an mentions only those fragments of the event which are relevant, ignoring those details which are irrelevant to Qur'anic purposes.
Again, at different places in the Qur'an the same event is mentioned for a variety of reasons.
On every occasion only those fragments of the story which are relevant to a specific purpose are mentioned and the rest are left out.
An instance in point is the above narrative about Noah.
In narrating Noah's story the Qur'an aims to point out the consequences attendant upon the rejection of the Prophet's Message.
Since the total period spent on conveying the Message does not have any direct relationship with that purpose, the Qur'an altogether ignores it here.
However, in passages where the Prophet and the Companions have been asked to remain patient, the long duration of the Prophet Noah's missionary, effort has been mentioned.
This has been done precisely, with a view to raising the morale of the believers and to prevent them from feeling low because they did not see any, good results coming out of that struggle.
By mentioning how Noah strove patiently for such a long period of time and in the face of discouraging circumstances is quite relevant in this context as it helps to teach the lesson which is intended.
That lesson is to persist in serving the cause of the truth and to refuse to be daunted by the adversity of the circumstances.
See al-'Ankabut 29: 14.

It would be appropriate to remove, at this stage, a doubt which might agitate the minds of some people.
For one frequently reads in the Qur'an accounts of nations which rejected their Prophets and charged them with lying.
One also reads about the Prophets warning them of God's punishment, and then about its sudden advent, scourging the nation and totally destroying it.
This gives rise to the question: Why do such catastrophic incidents not take place in our own time? Nations still rise and fall, but the phenomenon of their rise and fall is of a different nature.
We do not see it happen that a nation is served with a warning, and is then totally destroyed by a calamity such as an earthquake.
a flood, a storm, or a thunderbolt.

In order to understand this it should be remembered that a nation which has directly received God's Message from a Prophet is treated by God in a different manner from nations which have not witnessed a Prophet.
For if a nation directly witnesses a Prophet - an embodiment of righteousness - and receives God's Message from his tongue, it has no valid excuse left for rejecting that Message.
And if it still rejects the Message, it indeed deserves to be summarily punished.
Other nations are to be placed in a different category since they received God's Message indirectly.
Hence, if the nations of the present time are not visited by; the devastating punishments which struck the nations of the Prophets in the past, one need not wonder since prophethood came to an end with the advent of Muhammad ( peace be on him ).
One should indeed have cause to wonder if one saw the opposite happen - that is, if the nations of the present were visited by punishments from God which had afflicted those nations that rejected their Prophets face to face.

This does not mean, however, that God has ceased to inflict sevire punishments on nations which turn away from God and are sunk in ideological and moral error.
The fact is that God's punishments still afflict different nations of the world.
These punishments are both minor and major.
Minor punishments are aimed at warning those nations, and the major ones are of a much more serious character and cause considerable damage.
However, in the absence of the Prophets who are wont to draw attention to moral degeneration as the basic cause of these calamities, the historians and thinkers of our time only scratch the surface and explain these in terms of physical laws or historical causes.
These sophisticated explanations are of little help.
On the contrary, nations so afflicted with heedlessness and moral stupor are thereby further prevented from appreciating that God has always warned evil-doing nations against following their evil ways, and that when they wilfully disregard these warnings and adamantly stick to their erroneous ways.
He ultimately inflicts disastrous punishments upon them.

 

أَوَ عَجِبْتُمْ ( "Do you wonder..." ), do not wonder because of this.
Surely, it is not strange that Allah sends down revelation to a man among you as mercy, kindness and compassion for you, so that he warns you that you may avoid Allah's torment by associating none with Him, وَلَعَلَّكُمْ تُرْحَمُونَ ( "and that you may receive (His ) mercy.") Allah said, فَكَذَّبُوهُ ( But they belied him ) but they insisted on rejecting and opposing him, and only a few of them believed in him, as Allah stated in another Ayah.
Allah said next, فَأَنجَيْنَـهُ وَالَّذِينَ مَعَهُ فِي الْفُلْكِ ( So We saved him and those along with him in the Fulk ) the ark, وَأَغْرَقْنَا الَّذِينَ كَذَّبُواْ بِـَايَـتِنَآ ( And We drowned those who belied Our Ayat.
) Allah said in another Ayah, مِّمَّا خَطِيئَـتِهِمْ أُغْرِقُواْ فَأُدْخِلُواْ نَاراً فَلَمْ يَجِدُواْ لَهُمْ مِّن دُونِ اللَّهِ أَنصَاراً ( Because of their sins they were drowned, then they were admitted into the Fire.
And they found none to help them instead of Allah. ) 71:25 Allah said, إِنَّهُمْ كَانُواْ قَوْماً عَمِينَ ( They were indeed a blind people. ) meaning, blind from the Truth, unable to recognize it or find their way to it.
Here, Allah said that He has taken revenge from His enemies and saved His Messenger and those who believed in him, while destroying their disbelieving enemies.
Allah said in a another Ayah, إِنَّا لَنَنصُرُ رُسُلَنَا ( Verily, We will indeed make victorious Our Messengers ) 40:51.
This is Allah's Sunnah ( way ) with His servants, in this life and the Hereafter, that the good end, victory and triumph is for those who fear Him.
For example, Allah destroyed the people of Nuh, and saved Nuh and his believing followers.
Ibn Wahb said that he was told that Ibn `Abbas said that eighty men were saved with Nuh in the ship, one of them was Jurhum, who spoke Arabic.
Ibn Abi Hatim collected this statement, which was also narrated with a continuous chain of narration from Ibn `Abbas.

( But they denied him ) i.e. Noah, ( so We saved him and those with him in the ship ) from drowning and torment, ( and We drowned those who denied Our token ) those who denied Our Scripture and Messenger Noah. ( Lo! they were blind folk ) to the guidance, disbelievers in Allah.

But they belied him, so We saved him and those along with him in the ship, and We drowned those who belied Our Ayat (proofs, evidences, verses, lessons, signs, revelations, etc.). They were indeed a blind people.

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