Title: Interpretations of the Qur'an in Contradiction to Ahadith Question: I have two questions: 1. In regards to Nuh and the flood, you mentioned that the Qur'an does not specify whether or not the flood was local or global. However, I have come across a hadith (sahih) that mentions that the only survivors on earth were "dhuriyat Nuh" alaiyhisalam. 2. You said that the "shihab" mentioned in the Qur'an, which is used to attack the Jinn does not necessarily mean "shooting stars". The hadiths, however, do specify that which attacks the Jinn as shooting stars. For instance, I read a hadith a while back that mentioned that the prophet (s) and his companions saw a shooting star and he (s) said that he was to stop the Jinn. In essence, I was wondering how it was that you derived interpretations that are in contradiction to the numerous ahadith. Jazak Allahu Khayran, Wasalamu'alaykum Answer: Following are the replies to your query: 1. The argument that makes it more likely that the flood at the time of Nuh (Noah) was only a local one is the fact that according to the Qur'an, the flood was the punishment of people who rejected Nuh's message after it was clearly manifested to them. According to the following verse for instance, those who were drowned by the flood had one common feature, that was, they were warned by Nuh and they denied him: "but they denied him (Nuh) so we saved him and those with him in the ship and made them viceroys and we drowned those who denied our signs. See then the destiny of those who were warned." Yunus 10:73 Obviously, those people who were living in other places on the face of the Earth had not seen Nuh and were not warned by him, therefore they couldn't be among the people who were the subject of this verse. The same conclusion can be drawn by other verses of the Qur'an like Hud 11:36, Al-Furqaan 25:37, Al-Shu'araa 26:117-118 and Nooh 71:25. No Hadith can change the above conclusion unless this strong evidence from the Qur'an is proved irrelevant. One counter argument could be that at the time of Nuh, his nation was the only human beings on the face of the Earth. From here, one can argue that the flood did in fact drown all human beings except Nuh and his followers. Of course this conclusion will be based on a baseless assumption. Another point that is worth of mentioning is that interpretation of many of the Ahadith related to the story of Nuh is subjected to one's understanding from some of the words that are used in these Ahadith. For instance, as you mentioned, there are Ahadith to the effect that only the children of Nuh survived the storm. A typical wording of these kinds of Ahadith is as follows: حدثنا علي قال ثنا أبو صالح قال ثني معاوية عن علي عن ابن عباس في قوله وجعلنا ذريته هم الباقين يقول لم يبق إلا ذرية نوح (Tabari - 23, 67 ; Ibn Kathir - 4:13) According to this Hadith, Ibn Abbas says (about the verse 37:77) that "there were no survivors but the children of Nuh". This Hadith can be easily interpreted to mean "there were no survivors - among the people of Nuh - but the children of Nuh". It is very common to remove such specifications in Arabic (or any other) language. Also in those Ahadith where it says the only survivors on Earth (Al-Ardh) were the children of Nuh, it is easily possible to interpret the word "Earth" to mean only the area where Nuh's people were living. It is very common in Arabic language to use the word Al-Ardh (Earth) only to mean a specific area on the Earth rather than the whole globe. For instance, among many, look at the following verse of the Qur'an: "And they nearly scared you (i.e. Prophet Muhammad pbuh) from the land (Al-Ardh) in order to drive you forth from it and in this case they wouldn't survive long after you." (Al-Israa 17:76) Obviously the word Al-Ardh in this verse means the land of Mecca not the whole Earth. The exact words that you refer to are as follows: "In this and the other similar verses the word Shahab does not necessarily connote meteorites we are acquainted to. The Qur'an simply used the word Shahab in its literal connotation meaning a mass of fire. Therefore it would not be very accurate to state the Qur'an refers to the stars or meteorites." ( Cosmology ) As you see the author does not say that Shahab is not a shooting star. In fact he says Shahab here means a mass of fire (that can be literally reworded as Shooting Star). All that the author asserts here is that this specific "shooting star" that the Qur'an is referred to is not necessarily the same meteorites that we know. In fact, in answering another question, our colleague does refer to Shahab as Shooting Star: "... any Jinn or Satan who tried to overhear the matter decided in the heavens found shooting stars following them." ( Magic and Revelation ) Therefore, the Hadith that you referred to, assuming it is reliable, does not necessarily contradict the above statements. You said: "I was wondering how it was that you derived interpretations that are in contradiction to the numerous ahadith." As explained, none of the above mentioned interpretations of the Qur'anic verses seem to be in contradiction with the stated Ahadith. However, on a more general note, our main concern is to make sure we do not derive interpretations that are in contradiction with the Qur'an itself. Obviously if we come across Ahadith that interpret a verse of the Qur'an in a way that it contradicts the Qur'an itself then we will have no choice but to reject those Ahadith as being incorrectly ascribed to the Prophet (pbuh) or to interpret the Hadith according to the Qur'an (not vice versa). In other words, one of the criteria for accepting a Hadith is to make sure that it is not directly or indirectly in contradiction with the Qur'an. Ahadith are great sources of understanding the Qur'an but only as a secondary source not a primary one. The primary source of understanding the Qur'an is the Qur'an itself. To elaborate on the above, the verses of the Qur'an can be best understood and interpreted using the Qur'an itself, this basically means looking at the context and the theme within which a verse is positioned, as well as looking at similar/relevant verses (parallels) and appreciating the language of the Qur'an. Other sources like Ahadith can be used as secondary sources that facilitate and help with understanding the verses of the Qur'an and their background. Nevertheless understanding the Qur'an is not dependent on these sources. Relying on these secondary sources as the main sources of understanding the Qur'an often results in numerous and conflicting as well as unreliable interpretations of the Qur'an. Abdullah Rahim