حَتَّىٰ إِذَا جَاءَ أَمْرُنَا وَفَارَ التَّنُّورُ قُلْنَا احْمِلْ فِيهَا مِن كُلٍّ زَوْجَيْنِ اثْنَيْنِ وَأَهْلَكَ إِلَّا مَن سَبَقَ عَلَيْهِ الْقَوْلُ وَمَنْ آمَنَ ۚ وَمَا آمَنَ مَعَهُ إِلَّا قَلِيلٌ (40)
(11:40) Thus it was until Our command came to pass and the oven boiled over. *42 We said: 'Take into the Ark a pair of every species; and take your own family except those who have already been declared (as unworthy); *43 and also take everyone who believes. *44 But those who, along with him, had believed were indeed just a few.
*42).Commentators on the Qur'an have offered different explanations of this incident. In our view, the place from which the Flood began was a particular oven. It is from beneath it that a spring of water burst forth. This was followed by both a heavy downpour and by a very large number of springs which gushed forth. Surah al-Qamar provides relevant information in some detail: So We opened the gates of the heaven, with water intermittently pouring forth, and We caused the earth to be cleaved and the springs to flow out everywhere. Then the water (from both the sources - the heaven and the earth) converged to bring about that which had been decreed (al-Qamar, 54: 11-12).
In the present verse, the word tannur has been preceded by the article al: According to Arabic grammar, this indicates that the reference is to a particular tannur (oven). Thus, it is evident that God had determined that the Flood should commence from a particular oven. As soon as the appointed moment came, and as soon as God so ordained, water burst forth from that oven. Subsequently, it became known as the Flood-Oven. The fact that God had earmarked a certain oven to serve as the starting-point of the Flood is borne out by al-Mu'minun 23: 27.
*43). Information that some members of Noah's family were unbelievers and so were unworthy of God's mercy had already been given. Noah (peace be on him) had also been directed not to provide them with space in the Ark. Presumably these were only two persons. One was Noah's own son; the story of his drowning will be referred to shortly (see verse 43 below). The other was Noah's wife (see al-Tahrim 66: 15). It is possible that some other members of Noah's family also belonged to this category. Be that as it may, the Qur'an does not expressly mention any others.
*44). This refutes the opinion of those historians and genealogists who trace the ancestry of all human beings to Noah's three sons. This misconception has arisen from the Israelite traditions which suggest that Noah, his three sons and their wives were the only survivors of the Flood. (See Genesis 6: 18, 7: 7, p. 1 and 9: 19.) The Qur'an, however, repeatedly says that apart from Noah's family, at least some other people belonging to his nation - even if only a few - were also saved by God from the Flood. The Qur'an, therefore, considers the future generations of mankind to have descended not only from Noah, but also from those believers who, under God's directive, were accommodated in the Ark by Noah. It is significant that the Qur'an mentions post-Flood mankind as the 'offspring of those whom We carried along with Noah' (al-Isra 17: 3) and the 'offspring of Adam and those whom We carried along with Noah' (Maryam 19: 58). It does not refer to them simply as 'the offspring of Noah'.