Page 570
wa-ʾinnī kullamā daʿawtuhum li-taghfira lahum jaʿalū ʾaṣābiʿahum fī ʾādhānihim wa-staghshaw thiyābahum wa-ʾaṣarrū wa-stakbarū stikbāran
Indeed whenever I have summoned them, so that You might forgive them, they would put their fingers into their ears and draw their cloaks over their heads, and they were persistent [in their unfaith], and disdainful in [their] arrogance.
— Ali Quli Qarai
Surah Nuh – Verses 5-9
5. He said: "O my Lord! I have called my people unto you night and day,
6. "But all my calling added nothing but to their flight from truth.
7. And every time I called unto them to believe in You that You might forgive them, they thrust their fingers into their ears, covered themselves up with their garments, persisted in their denial, and magnified themselves in arrogance.
8. "Then, I called to them openly to believe in and serve You.
9. And I proclaimed to them in public and I have appealed to them in private.
Proceeding with the account of Prophet Noah’s (as) Prophetic Call unto his people, he is quoted in the blessed Verses in question as complaining to his Lord. His words are quite instructive and may be great advantages to all propagators of religious doctrines. The Prophet (as) is quoted as saying that he called his people unto God Almighty and he spared no efforts in providing them with guidance, though his call was of no avail and added nothing but to their flight from truth.
It is a source of surprise that calling toward something may entail flight from it. Nonetheless, taking into account the fact that obdurate enemies of truth, upon hearing the calls of the men of God, deny the truth and such denial makes them further distance from God Almighty and reinforces their disbelief and hypocrisy. The same theme is treated elsewhere in the Holy Qur’an11:
According to the Glorious Qur’an, the Divine Revelation is a guide to the God fearing12, since human heart must entertain at least a flicker of fear of God Almighty so that it may pave the path for the acknowledgement of the truth. It is the stage of the spirit of seeking the truth and preparedness for acknowledging Divine Truth. The blessed Verse 7 quotes Prophet Noah (as) as saying that whenever he called unto them to believe in God Almighty so that He might forgive their sins, they thrust their fingers in their ears, covered themselves with their garments, persisted in their denial and disbelief, and their vanity waxed.
They thrust their fingers in their ears in order not to hear the truth and covering themselves with their garments implies that they made further attempts not to listen to the true call and thereby kept themselves from looking at the Noble Prophet Noah (as). They made attempts to impede themselves from hearing his words and looking at him. It is quite surprising that such people had reached such extent of animosity against the truth such that they deprived themselves from seeing, hearing, and thinking.
The blessed Verse reflects that Prophet Noah (as) untiringly strove in his long life to call his people unto embracing faith. It is also indicative of one of the most significant factors behind their misfortune, namely their arrogance and vanity, since they regarded it far below their league to obey a man, be he Allah’s Messenger, whose hear was imbued with knowledge and fear of God Almighty. Such vanity and arrogance have at all times served as impediments to treading the path of Truth and the adverse consequence thereof are reflected throughout history in the lives of the disbelievers.
In the blessed Verses 8 and 9, Prophet Noah (as) proceeds with his invocations before Divine Threshold, saying that he called his people to monotheism and worshipping God and called them in public with a loud voice to believe in Allah. He was not content with his public calls, but he expressed the truth of monotheism and belief in God Almighty in private as well. It lies in human nature that when he treads the path of falsehood such that corruption is rooted in his heart and turns into his second nature, he will be indifferent toward the calls of the men of God and clear Divine Calls.
Not only the people of Prophet Noah (as) thrust their fingers in their ears and wrapped themselves with their garments to deprive themselves of Truth, but also there were people at the time of the Noble Prophet of the Islamic faith (S) that upon hearing his sweet voice when reciting Qur’anic Verses made such clamor and havoc that they impeded others from hearing him. According to a Qur’anic blessed Verse13:
In this vein, it is narrated in the account of the bloody battle at Karbala’ that when the lord of the martyrs, Imam Husayn (as), intended to provide the foes with guidance and thereby wake them up, they created such havoc that people could barely hear him.14 Similar form of confrontation are to be witnessed today when we notice that the followers of falsehood have created such atmosphere with harmful recreations, devastating kinds of music, narcotics, and the like that people, particularly the youth, may not be able to hear the sweet voice of the men of God and the blessed Qur’anic Verses.
Footnotes