Page "Noah's Ark" Paragraph 17

Noah spent five or six months aboard the ark, at the end of which he sent out a raven.

But the raven stopped to feast on carrion, and so Noah cursed it and sent out the dove, which has been known ever since as the friend of mankind.

The medieval scholar Abu al-Hasan Ali ibn al-Husayn Masudi ( d. 956 ) wrote that Allah commanded the Earth to absorb the water, and certain portions which were slow in obeying received salt water in punishment and so became dry and arid.

The water which was not absorbed formed the seas, so that the waters of the flood still exist.

Masudi says that the ark began its voyage at Kufa in central Iraq and sailed to Mecca, circling the Kaaba before finally traveling to Mount Judi, which surah 11: 44 states was its final resting place.

This mountain is identified by tradition with a hill near the town of Jazirat ibn Umar on the east bank of the Tigris in the province of Mosul in northern Iraq, and Masudi says that the spot could be seen in his time.