The story
When idols first stood between people and their Maker, Allah sent Nuh, the first messenger to a nation. His method is described in his own words in the surah that bears his name: 'My Lord, I called my people night and day, but my calling only increased them in flight' (71:5-6). He called publicly and privately, with promises of rain and wealth and gardens if they would only seek forgiveness. For nine hundred and fifty years (29:14) the answer was fingers in ears and cloaks pulled over faces.
The believers were a handful, and the chiefs mocked them as 'the lowest among us'. When the decree came, Nuh was commanded to build an ark far from any sea, under their eyes and under their laughter: 'Every time chiefs of his people passed him, they ridiculed him' (11:38). Then the ovens of the earth gushed, the sky opened, and the ship carried the believers and pairs of every kind upon waves like mountains.
The hardest verse of his story is a father's: his own son refused to board, trusting a mountain against the water of Allah. 'And the waves came between them, and he was among the drowned' (11:43). When Nuh appealed, the answer drew the line that defines faith forever: kinship is conduct, not blood. The ark settled on Judiyy, and mankind began again from the people of gratitude. The Qur'an calls him 'a grateful servant' (17:3), and every prophet after him sails in his wake.