44 Preface وَقيلَ يا أَرضُ ابلَعي ماءَكِ وَيا سَماءُ أَقلِعي وَغيضَ الماءُ وَقُضِيَ الأَمرُ وَاستَوَت عَلَى الجودِيِّ ۖ وَقيلَ بُعدًا لِلقَومِ الظّالِمينَYusuf AliThen the word went forth:1 “O earth! swallow up thy water, and O sky! Withhold (thy rain)!” and the water abated, and the matter was ended. The Ark rested on Mount2 Judi, and the word went forth: “Away with those who do wrong!”A wonderful passage. The whole picture is painted in just a few words. The chain of material facts are linked together, not only in their relations to each other, but also in their relation to the spiritual forces (hat control them, and the spiritual consequences of Sin and wrongdoing. The drowning in the material sense was the last part of the Penalty. A whole new world came into existence after the Deluge. (R).Let us get a little idea of the geography of the place. The letters JiM, Ba', and Kaf are philologically interchangeable, and Judi, Gudi”, Kudi are sounds that can pass into each other. There is no doubt that the name is connected with the name “Kurd”, in which the letter ris a later interpolation, for the oldest Sumerian records name a people called Kuti or Gutu as holding the middle Tigris region not later than 2000 B.C. (see E.B., Kurdistan). That region comprises the modern Turkish district of Bohtan, in which Jabal Judi is situated (near the frontiers of modern Turkey, modern Iraq, and modern Syria), and the town of Jazirah ibn 'Umar, (on the present Turco-Syrian frontier), and it extends into Iraq and Iran. The great mountain mass of the Ararat plateau dominates this district. This mountain system “is unique in the Old World in containing great sheets of water that are bitter lakes without outlets, Lake Van and Lake Urumiya being the chief (E.B., Asia). Such would be the very region for a stupendous Deluge if the usual scanty rainfall were to be changed into a very heavy downpour. A glacier damming of Lake Van in the Ice Age would have produced the same result. The region has many local traditions connected with Noah and the Flood. The Biblical legend of Mount Ararat being the resting place of Noah’s Ark is hardly plausible, seeing that the highest peak of Ararat is over 16,000 feet high. If it means one of the lower peaks of the Ararat system, it agrees with the Muslim tradition about Mount Judi (or Gudi), and this is in accordance with the oldest and best local traditions. These traditions are accepted by Josephus, by the Nestorian Christians, and indeed by all the Eastern Christians and Jews, and they are the best in touch with local traditions. See (Viscount) J Bryce. “Transcaucasia and Ararat” 4th ed., 1896, p. 216.