Was Noah’s Flood Global or Local?
Q. Atheism has decisively disproven traditional God-claims through the advance of modern science. For example, the flood myth that you cite in your video has been conclusively proven false. A global flood event conflicts with modern geology and the belief that all life forms descended from the inhabitants of an ark conflicts with the evolutionary history of life-forms on earth.
In the Name of Allah, Most Merciful and Compassionate
This objection assumes that the narrative of the flood of Noah in the Quran is the same as the narrative in the Bible. That is a false assumption. The Quran does not replicate any Biblical story verbatim. The Biblical stories have been altered by the hands of men, and it is these alterations that lead to contradictions such as those mentioned in the question. Whenever the Quran relates a Biblical story, it contains corrections, additions, and omissions that re-align it with modern scientific and historical knowledge (often miraculously, as I describe in The Miracle of the Pharaoh in the Quran).
1. The Biblical Global Flood Narrative Conflicts with Modern Science
The Biblical Flood narrative conflicts with modern scientific conclusions regarding the history of our planet because it describes the Flood as:
(1) a global event
(2) that destroyed all terrestrial life [1]
(3) approximately 6000 years ago. [2]
It is the combination of these three facts—(1) the global nature of the Flood, (2) its destruction of all terrestrial life, and (3) its occurrence about 6000 years ago—that conflicts with modern scientific conclusions regarding the history of our planet.
Scientists argue that these facts give rise to three conflicts.
(1) The radiometric dating of rocks on the earth and on the moon shows with a very high degree of certainty that the earth is about 4.5 billion years old—750 thousand times older than the 6000 year Biblical age! (This conflicts with fact (3) above. Note that this conflict has nothing to do with the Flood per se.)
(2) Large bodies of water that dry up leave behind signatures in the geological record. Scientists can, for example, examine the different layers of sandstone to determine the periods of time for which those regions of the earth were submerged in water and those periods of time for which they were dry. If there had been a global flood that suddenly disappeared after one year (as the Bible states), it would have left its mark in the geological record. Not only is this mark conspicuously absent, but the geological record reveals that many parts of the world have not been submerged in water for millions of years. (This conflicts with fact (1) above.)
(3) There are over a million species of animals on earth. It is impossible for the ancestors of all these animals to have fit onto a single ark. Even if we admit this impossibility, for the present global populations of these million species to have proliferated to present levels in 6000 years from a single pair is also impossible. Furthermore, if the Flood had destroyed all terrestrial life, we would see an abrupt end in the fossil record at some point in the past all over the world, followed by a concentrated proliferation of all kinds of terrestrial life from one particular location. Not only is this absent in the fossil record, but the fossil record reveals a continuity of evolutionary history all over the world. (This conflicts with fact (2) above. Note that the fossil argument assumes that the Flood happened more than 6000 years ago, as fossils require a very long period of time to form.)
2. The Quranic Flood Narrative Does Not Conflict With the Geological and Biological History of the Earth
Unlike the Bible, which chronologically details the story of the Flood in one location, the Quran scatters the Flood narrative across several different chapters, mentioning different parts and details of the narrative in different chapters. When we piece together these different parts and details, we find that the basic story of the Prophet Noah (upon him be peace) is as follows.
(1) Noah was a messenger that God sent to “his people” (Quran, 7:59, 10:71, 71:1, and others). Note that the Bible does not describe Noah as a messenger, but merely as a righteous man (while at the same time ascribing sin to him).
(2) Noah’s people had fallen into idolatry and his mission was to warn his people to stop worshiping idols and to worship God alone, lest a punishment from God descend on them.
(3) His people disbelieved in him, mocked him, and disobeyed him. As a result of their rejection of the messenger that God sent them, God unleashed a flood that destroyed them all except for the few believers who were saved with him on the Ark.
(4) Human civilization began anew with these few believing survivors.
Unlike the Biblical narrative, the Quranic narrative does not explicitly state whether the Flood was a global event that drowned all creatures on earth or a local event that only drowned the people to whom Noah was sent (although, as we shall see, the straightforward reading of the Quranic verses seems to suggest the latter). Also unlike the Biblical narrative, the Quranic narrative does not give any genealogical details that would place the Flood at some precise date. Since the Quranic narrative leaves open the possibility that the Flood was local, and since it does not specify a date for the Flood, it does not conflict with modern geology, nor does it conflict with modern biology, nor does it conflict with the radiometric dating of rocks on the surface of the earth and moon.
3. The Exegetical Methods of the Classical Quranic Scholarship Require the Incorporation of Modern Scientific Evidence
Even though the Quranic verses do not state whether the Flood was global or local, most medieval Quranic exegetes believed that it was global. They came to this conclusion based on the two lines of evidence that they had access to:
(1) the Flood narrative as mentioned in the Quran and the authenticated hadiths of the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace), which was open to a reading of the Flood as a global event (just as it was open to a reading of the Flood as a local event), and
(2) the Flood narrative as mentioned in the Biblical and exegetical traditions of the Jews and Christians (Ar. isra’iliyyat), which explicitly described the Flood as a global event and gave many historical details that were absent from the Quran and authenticated hadiths of the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace).
Medieval Quranic exegetes filled in the details of the Quranic narrative with these latter Biblical and exegetical traditions. It was natural for them to do this because the Quranic narratives were revealed against the backdrop of the Biblical stories that were circulating among the Jews and Christians at the time of the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace), who taught his Companions that there was “no harm” in relating these Biblical stories (Bukhari).
But at the same time, the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace also told them that they should neither believe in them nor disbelieve in them (Bukhari) because of the possibility of human alteration. As long as a Biblical narrative in circulation at the time of the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) did not conflict with the Quranic narrative, it was frequently cited along with the Quranic narrative to fill in its details.
When certain details of the Biblical narrative were extremely widespread and well-known, such as the global nature of the Flood, the Quranic silence on the matter resembled a tacit approval, and the medieval exegetes cited the Biblical narratives widely. But although the silence resembled a tacit approval, it was never understood as an actual approval because the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) said, “When the People of the Book narrate something to you, then neither believe them nor disbelieve them.” (Bukhari)
Because of this hadith, whenever an exegete filled in the details of a Quranic narrative with a Biblical narrative, he, as well as his readers, filled the details with the tacit proviso that these details that might, in fact, come from a Biblical narrative that had been altered. In their time, the only way they could know with certainty that a Biblical narrative had, in fact, been altered was if it conflicted with verses of the Quran or hadiths of the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace). But today, we have another way of determining whether a Biblical narrative has been altered.
Today, we can tell that a Biblical narrative has been altered if it conflicts with scientific evidence. In the case of the Biblical Flood narrative, scientific evidence that tells us points against a global flood, against the sudden extinction of all terrestrial animals, and against a 6000-year age of the earth, this scientific evidence tells us that these aspects of the Biblical Flood narrative were not part of the original divine revelation that was given to the prophets of the Children of Israel, but that it is a result of human alterations to that original divine revelation.
The incorporation of modern scientific evidence into Quranic exegesis in this way is not only consistent with the exegetical methods of the medieval Quranic exegetes, it is, in fact, demanded by those exegetical methods. Had the medieval Quranic exegetes been alive today, this is how they themselves would have interpreted the Biblical narrative.
4. A Contextual Reading of the Quranic Narrative Points to a Local Flood
In light of all of the above, I believe that the most plausible reading of the Quranic Flood narrative today is as follows.
(1) Noah was a messenger that God sent to “his people” (Quran, 7:59, 10:71, 71:1, and others). The people of the Prophet Noah (upon him be peace) to whom he was sent did not inhabit the entire planet because the Prophet Noah (upon him be peace) could not have delivered God’s message to all of them without the communication and transportation technologies that have only been developed in the modern scientific age. The people of the Prophet Noah (upon him be peace) inhabited a small region—perhaps a group of villages or, at most, a small cluster of prehistoric cities.
(2) The people of the Prophet Noah (upon him be peace) had fallen into idolatry and his mission was to warn them to stop worshiping idols and to worship God alone, lest a punishment from God descend on them.
(3) These people disbelieved in him, mocked him, and disobeyed him. As a result of their rejection of the messenger that God sent them, God unleashed a local flood that encompassed the area that they inhabited. The Flood was divine punishment for their disbelief. It was a punishment that was intended for them alone, not anyone else. For other people to have been destroyed by the flood as a result of the disbelief of the people of Prophet Noah (upon him be peace) would go against the Quranic verse, “We never punish [a people] until We send them a messenger [to warn them of the punishment so that they can avoid it].” (Quran, 17:15)
(4) Before the Flood, the Prophet Noah (upon him be peace) and those who believed in him were commanded to construct an Ark. When the flood began, they were commanded to board the Ark and to take with them “a pair of every kind [of animal]” (Quran, 11:40). Inclusive expressions in the Quran such as “every” or “all” are frequently used to refer to a restricted kind of inclusion for rhetorical emphasis. [3] Since it is impossible for the Prophet Noah (upon him be peace) to have boarded a million species of animals onto the Ark, we infer that “every kind [of animal]” means “every kind of animal that they needed”, meaning those domesticated animals that they farmed, milked, ate, or rode on. In the ancient Arabic language, the rhetorical effect of the inclusive expression here is to emphasize that they should board absolutely every kind of animal that they needed and not leave any kind of animal behind.
(5) When the floodwaters receded, the followers of the Prophet Noah disembarked on Mount Judi. (This is a correction to the Mount Ararat that is mentioned in the Bible. Many contemporary scholars believe that this is a miraculous correction. I will insha’allah describe in a separate post.) After their disembarkment, they began their civilization anew with the animals that they had kept with them on the Ark.
(6) There is evidence from the Quran and from the hadiths of the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) that suggests that all mankind was destroyed by the Flood. If this was, in fact, the case, then the people of the Prophet Noah (upon him be peace) would have to be the only humans on the earth, which would situate them closer to the time of the Prophet Adam (upon him be peace), before humans migrated and spread out all over the world. If we read human history as most modern paleontologists do, the Prophet Adam (upon him be peace) would seem to have existed a very long time ago, at least 200,000 years ago, and the spread of humans all over the world would have taken place before the recent past. But the Quranic description of the Prophet Noah (upon him be peace) appears to have occurred in the more recent past. This may require us to revisit traditional interpretations of the Flood as destroying all mankind. I will, insha’allah, examine this in a future article.
And Allah Most High knows best.
Notes
[1] According to the Bible, the flood of Noah was a global event that destroyed all terrestrial life on earth:
“I am going to bring floodwaters on the earth to destroy all life under the heavens, every creature that has the breath of life in it. Everything on earth will perish.” (Genesis, 6:17)
The only creatures who survived were those who were with Noah on the ark: “The Lord then said to Noah,
“Go into the ark, you and your whole family, because I have found you righteous in this generation. 2 Take with you seven pairs of every kind of clean animal, a male and its mate, and one pair of every kind of unclean animal, a male and its mate, 3 and also seven pairs of every kind of bird, male and female, to keep their various kinds alive throughout the earth. 4 Seven days from now I will send rain on the earth for forty days and forty nights, and I will wipe from the face of the earth every living creature I have made.” (Genesis, 7:1-4)
[2] Genesis 5 and 11 give detailed genealogies from Adam to Abraham. Christian scholars have used these genealogies to estimate that the earth is about 6000 years old. Copies of the King James Bible were printed with the precise creation date of 4004 BC and the belief that the earth was created about 6000 years ago was considered Christian orthodoxy well into the Early Modern period.
[3] Scholars of scriptural interpretation have, for centuries, said that “there is barely any inclusive expression (‘amm) except that its inclusiveness is restricted (makhsus)”. The rules for restricting inclusive expressions is an important chapter in the science of legal theory (usul al-fiqh). Imam al-Shafi`i (d. 820) formally discussed the topic in his work less than two centuries after the demise of the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace). His discussions reveal that this was an interpretive principle widely used by scholars even before his time, and that it traces all the way back to the Companions themselves.
The picture used in this blog is from America Magazine.
