Tafsir of Nuh 71:23

"And they said, 'Do not leave your gods,'" meaning: Do not abandon their worship entirely—[in contrast to] the worship of the Lord of Nuh, peace be upon him.

"And do not leave Wadd, nor Suwa‘, nor Yaghuth, and Ya‘uq, and Nasr," meaning: Do not abandon the worship of these specifically mentioned [deities], despite them being included in the previous [general] command. This is because they were the greatest of their idols and their most false objects of worship, and they held them in the highest esteem—though, in their own estimation, they varied in magnitude, as is indicated by the repetition of the negative particle la (do not) with some, and omitting it with others. It has been said that Ya‘uq and Nasr were separated from the negation due to the frequent repetition of la and the absence of any ambiguity.

These idols were transmitted to the Arabs. Al-Bukhari, Ibn al-Mundhir, and Ibn Mardawayh recorded from Ibn ‘Abbas that he said: The idols that existed among the people of Nuh, peace be upon him, later became [the idols] of the Arabs. As for Wadd, it belonged to [the tribe of] Kalb in Dawmat al-Jandal; as for Suwa‘, it belonged to Hudhayl; as for Yaghuth, it belonged to Murad, and then to the sons of Ghutayf near Saba’; as for Ya‘uq, it belonged to Hamdan; and as for Nasr, it belonged to Himyar, specifically for the lineage of Dhu al-Kula‘.

These names were the names of righteous men among the people of Nuh. When they died, Shaytan inspired them to erect statues in the meeting places where they used to sit, and to name them by their names. They did so, and they were not worshiped until those who established them perished and knowledge vanished; then they were worshiped.

Abu al-Shaykh recorded in al-‘Azamah from Muhammad ibn Ka‘b al-Qurazi that he said: Adam, peace be upon him, had five sons: Wadd, Suwa‘, etc. They were devout men. When one of them died, the people grieved for him intensely. Shaytan came to them and said, "Do you grieve for this companion of yours?" They replied, "Yes." He said, "Shall I fashion for you one like him in your place of prayer, so that when you look at him, you remember him?" They said, "We dislike that you should put for us something in our place of prayer upon which we pray." He said, "Then I shall put it at the back of the mosque." They agreed, and he fashioned it for them. When all five of them had died, he fashioned their images in the back of the mosque. Matters deteriorated until they abandoned the worship of Allah Almighty and worshiped these [images]. So Allah Almighty sent Nuh, peace be upon him, and he called them to worship Allah alone and abandon their worship. Then they said what they said.

Ibn Abi Hatim recorded from ‘Urwah ibn al-Zubayr that Wadd was the greatest and most pious of them, and they were all children of Adam, peace be upon him. It is reported that Wadd was the first to be worshiped besides Allah Almighty. ‘Abd ibn Humayd recorded from Abu Mutahhar that he said: They mentioned Yazid ibn al-Muhallab in the presence of Abu Ja‘far, may Allah be pleased with him, who said: "He was killed in the first land where something other than Allah Almighty was worshiped." Then he mentioned Wadd and said: "He was a Muslim man who was beloved by his people. When he died, they camped around his grave in the land of Babylon and lamented for him. When Iblis saw their lamentation, he took the form of a human and said, 'I see your grief for him; shall I fashion for you one like him to be in your assembly so you may remember him through it?' They said, 'Yes.' He fashioned one like him for them, and they placed it in their assembly, remembering him through it. When he saw their attachment to remembering him, he said, 'Shall I place for you in the house of every one of you a statue like him, so that it remains in your homes and you are reminded by it?' They said, 'Yes.' He did so, and they began to remember him through them. Their children grew up seeing what they were doing with them, and generations passed. The practice of remembering him faded until they took them as gods to be worshiped besides Allah Almighty. Thus, the first to be worshiped on earth besides Allah Almighty was Wadd."

Ibn al-Mundhir and others recorded from Abu ‘Uthman al-Nahdi that he said: "I saw Yaghuth; it was made of lead and was carried on a shorn camel. They would travel with it without provoking it, until it was the one to kneel. When it knelt, they would dismount and say, 'It has chosen this place for you,' so they would settle around it and build a structure over it."

It is said that the preservation of those actual idols and their transfer to the Arabs is remote; the most apparent view is that only the names remained, so the Arabs adopted idols and named them accordingly. They also said, "Servant of Wadd" and "Servant of Yaghuth," meaning their own idols. What Abu ‘Uthman saw of them was by the names that preceded.

It is narrated that Wadd was in the form of a man, Suwa‘ in the form of a woman, Yaghuth in the form of a lion, Ya‘uq in the form of a horse, and Nasr in the form of a vulture. This contradicts the previous account that they were in the images of righteous men, which is the more correct [view].

Nafi‘, Abu Ja‘far, and Shaybah—with a difference among them—read "Wuddan" with a damma on the waw. Al-Ashhab al-‘Uqayli read "Yaghuthan" and "Ya‘uqan" with tanwin. The author of al-Lawami‘ said: He treated them as the fa‘ul form, hence he made them fully declinable (munsarif). In the reading of the majority, they are adjectives derived from al-ghawth (aid) and al-‘awq (hindrance), acting as verbs. They are proper nouns (ma‘rifah), and thus they are diptotes (ghayr munsarif) due to the presence of two causes: proper noun status (al-‘alamiyyah) and similarity to the future verb form. Abu Hayyan critiqued this, saying: This is confusion. Firstly, they cannot be of the fa‘ul form because the root y-gh-th and y-‘-q are absent [in that pattern]. Secondly, they are not adjectives, because the yaf‘alu pattern does not occur as a noun or adjective. They are prevented from declension due to proper noun status and the verb form (if they are Arabic) or due to proper noun status and foreignness (if they are non-Arabic).

Ibn ‘Atiyyah said: Al-A‘mash read "Yaghuthan" and "Ya‘uqan" as fully declinable, which is an error, because proper noun status is present, as is the verb form. You know that al-A‘mash was not alone in this, and it is not an error; rather, they have explained it in one of two ways: first, that the declension is for the sake of consistency (tanasub), as they said in [the words] salasil and agh-lala (chains and shackles), which is a type of stylistic adaptation (mushakalah) and is counted among literary embellishments. Second, that it comes from the dialect of those who decline all things that are generally non-declinable among the Arabs; a dialect mentioned by al-Kisa’i and others. However, the objection to this is that it is a non-eloquent dialect and should not be used as a basis for linguistic derivation.