The Quran

تِلكَ مِن أَنباءِ الغَيبِ نوحيها إِلَيكَ ۖ ما كُنتَ تَعلَمُها أَنتَ وَلا قَومُكَ مِن قَبلِ هٰذا ۖ فَاصبِر ۖ إِنَّ العاقِبَةَ لِلمُتَّقينَ

Muhammad Asad

THESE ACCOUNTS of something that was beyond the reach of thy perception We [now] reveal unto thee, [O Muhammad: for] neither thou nor thy people knew them [fully] ere this.¹ Be, then, [like Noah,] patient in adversity - for, behold, the future belongs to the God-conscious!

See verse 35 above. Although the story of Noah had been vaguely known to the Arabs even before the advent of the Prophet Muhammad, they - and the Prophet with them - were entirrely unaware of the details as narrated in the preceding Qur'anic account (Razi). The use of the plural at the beginning of this parenthetic passage ("These accounts") - in contrast with the singular form employed in a similar phrase occurring in 3:44, 11:100 and 12:102 ("This account") - seems, in my opinion, to indicate that it refers not only to the preceding story of Noah but also to the subsequent stories of other prophets. In this connection it should be remembered - and it cannot be stressed too often - that "narrative" as such is never the purpose of the Qur'an. Whenever it relates the stories of earlier prophets, or alludes to ancient legends or to historical events that took place before the advent of Islam or during the lifetime of the Prophet, the aim is, invariably, a moral lesson; and since one and the same event, or even legend, has usually many facets revealing as many moral implications, the Qur'an reverts again and again to the same stories, but every time with a slight variation of stress on this or that aspect of the fundamental truths underlying the Qur'anic revelation as a whole.