NOAH, HUD, AND SALIH.

This is a narrative excerpt from a compilation of Islamic legendary tradition, likely a 19th-century European translation of Arabic folk-religious material. It recounts the post-flood history of prophets and peoples: Noah's flood (with distinctive details like the ark circling the Kaaba's site and the raven being cursed for feasting on a carcass), the curse of Ham as origin of Black peoples, and the missions of the prophets Hud and Salih to the giant nations of pre-Islamic Arabia. The central narrative follows Salih — born of the hidden prophet Kanuch and his wife reunited by a Paradise-raven — who performs miracles against the idol-worshipping Thamudites, is punished by Allah with a 20-year cave-sleep for rashly condemning his people, then awakens to resume his mission. A notably distinctive feature is the elaborate mythological texture layered onto Quranic stories: the Kaaba's black diamond hidden on a mountaintop during the flood, the hybrid idol with a lion's body and horse's feet, and the Paradise-raven whose eyes light up a room like the sun. The text belongs to a tradition of Islamic legendary elaboration (often called *isrā'īliyyāt* or "Tales of the Prophets") that fills narrative gaps left by the Quran with fantastical detail, and is of interest to readers studying comparative mythology, Islamic folk tradition, or the history of pre-Islamic Arabian peoples as remembered in Muslim sources.

NOAH, HUD, AND SALIH.

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