The first nail I hammered into the wood was quiet—barely a tap. I remember the splinter pressing into my thumb, the smell of raw cedar, and the wind teasing the corners of my cloak. But before long, the sound changed. Tap, tap—laughter. Tap—mockery. Tap—shouting. I kept building.
I was just a boy then, helping my father, Prophet Nuh (peace be upon him), build what they all called “a madness.” We weren’t near any sea. The sky was blue. Our tools were crude. And people—our neighbors, our cousins—laughed until they choked.
They called my father a liar. A madman. A fool. But when I looked at him, his eyes were never angry. Only full of something I now recognize as mercy. Every morning he stood in the square, calling people gently: “Worship Allah ﷻ alone. Turn back before it’s too late.” He warned them, day after day, for years that a great flood would come—not just rain, but a punishment from above.
No one listened.
Except us—his family, and a few believers. Maybe eighty in all. The rest mocked and spat and threw stones sometimes. “Where’s this flood, Nuh?” they’d sneer. “Is the sky broken? Should we bring you water for your giant boat?” And still, he built. Every board placed with care. Every prayer whispered under his breath.
One evening, the sky changed. Clouds rolled in from the mountains, so thick they hid the sun hours before sunset. My bones felt something shift. Then the earth cracked beneath us. Water—boiling, furious water—burst from the ground. Rivers from the skies and rivers from below. It came all at once.
And that’s when it happened.
I saw him—my half-brother—rushing toward a mountain. He had not boarded the Ark. “Come aboard!” my father shouted. “There is no safety today except with Allah ﷻ!” But his voice was swallowed by thunder.
“I will climb to the peak!” the boy yelled back over the wind. “The mountain will save me!”
“No one is saved today,” my father wept. “Except those Allah ﷻ has mercy on.”
And just like that—the waves rose taller than trees, wrapping around the mountain like cloth. He was gone. Swallowed, as so many were. Tall, proud men washed away like twigs. Strong rivers that once flowed downhill now burst upward toward the sky.
For forty days and nights, the Ark moved over a drowned world. There was only sky and water and our prayers. Every time we passed the ruins of a city, someone would gasp. What was once power, now silence. The flood didn’t just take lives—it carved the memory of disbelief into every shoreline.
When the waters finally began to retreat, the Ark settled atop Mount Judi, its wood creaking like an old man sighing. My father stepped outside, tears running down his cheeks—not for revenge, not even for victory, but for the weight of it all. Of warnings unheeded. Of a world changed.
I realized then: Faith doesn’t always look like lightning from the sky. Sometimes, it's a man hammering wood in the sun while the world laughs. And salvation? It never comes from the mountains. It comes from obeying the call—even when no one else does.
The first nail I hammered into the wood was quiet—barely a tap. I remember the splinter pressing into my thumb, the smell of raw cedar, and the wind teasing the corners of my cloak. But before long, the sound changed. Tap, tap—laughter. Tap—mockery. Tap—shouting. I kept building.
I was just a boy then, helping my father, Prophet Nuh (peace be upon him), build what they all called “a madness.” We weren’t near any sea. The sky was blue. Our tools were crude. And people—our neighbors, our cousins—laughed until they choked.
They called my father a liar. A madman. A fool. But when I looked at him, his eyes were never angry. Only full of something I now recognize as mercy. Every morning he stood in the square, calling people gently: “Worship Allah ﷻ alone. Turn back before it’s too late.” He warned them, day after day, for years that a great flood would come—not just rain, but a punishment from above.
No one listened.
Except us—his family, and a few believers. Maybe eighty in all. The rest mocked and spat and threw stones sometimes. “Where’s this flood, Nuh?” they’d sneer. “Is the sky broken? Should we bring you water for your giant boat?” And still, he built. Every board placed with care. Every prayer whispered under his breath.
One evening, the sky changed. Clouds rolled in from the mountains, so thick they hid the sun hours before sunset. My bones felt something shift. Then the earth cracked beneath us. Water—boiling, furious water—burst from the ground. Rivers from the skies and rivers from below. It came all at once.
And that’s when it happened.
I saw him—my half-brother—rushing toward a mountain. He had not boarded the Ark. “Come aboard!” my father shouted. “There is no safety today except with Allah ﷻ!” But his voice was swallowed by thunder.
“I will climb to the peak!” the boy yelled back over the wind. “The mountain will save me!”
“No one is saved today,” my father wept. “Except those Allah ﷻ has mercy on.”
And just like that—the waves rose taller than trees, wrapping around the mountain like cloth. He was gone. Swallowed, as so many were. Tall, proud men washed away like twigs. Strong rivers that once flowed downhill now burst upward toward the sky.
For forty days and nights, the Ark moved over a drowned world. There was only sky and water and our prayers. Every time we passed the ruins of a city, someone would gasp. What was once power, now silence. The flood didn’t just take lives—it carved the memory of disbelief into every shoreline.
When the waters finally began to retreat, the Ark settled atop Mount Judi, its wood creaking like an old man sighing. My father stepped outside, tears running down his cheeks—not for revenge, not even for victory, but for the weight of it all. Of warnings unheeded. Of a world changed.
I realized then: Faith doesn’t always look like lightning from the sky. Sometimes, it's a man hammering wood in the sun while the world laughs. And salvation? It never comes from the mountains. It comes from obeying the call—even when no one else does.
