Habil and Qabil

Adam had two sons called Habil and Qabil. Adam thought that Habil, the younger son, should take over after him. But Qabil didn't like this idea and was very jealous.

To settle the argument Adam thought of an idea. He told his sons to think of a present to give to Allah and to leave it on top of a certain hill.

The one whose present Allah accepted, would win the argument.

Allah chose Habil's present because Habil had taken a lot of time and trouble to choose his present.

Qabil was very upset and angry. He was so angry that he killed his own brother. Afterwards, when he realised what he had done, he cried and cried but it was too late to be sorry.

Prophet Nuh (a)

After many years Adam had grandchildren and even great grandchildren. There were now lots of people on earth. Many of them obeyed Allah but some were not so good and did just what they wanted to do all the time. This made Allah very unhappy.

Allah chose Nuh, a good man, to tell the people that what they were doing was wrong. But they wouldn't listen to him and carried on doing bad things.

Allah decided that all the naughty people should be punished. He told Nuh to build a big ark near his house.

Nuh quickly got busy choosing good wood and building it up into a fine ark. A lot of people laughed at him but he did not take any notice of them, because Allah had told him what to do.

When he had finished, he put lots of food into the ark and collected the good people together. They also took lots of animals with them into the ark, two of every kind.

One day, all of a sudden, the sky went very dark and it started to rain. Lightly at first, then more and more heavily. Soon there was water everywhere. The bad people were not laughing any more. They were frightened because they had no shelter from the water.

Only the good people in the ark were safe and dry.

Source: al-shia.org