Noah in rabbinic literature When Noah and his family and everything that he had taken with him were inside the ark, the people left outside asked him to admit them too, promising repentance. Noah refused to admit them, objecting that he had exhorted them to repent many years before the Flood. The people then assembled in great numbers around the ark in order to break into it; but they were destroyed by the lions and other wild animals which also surrounded it (Tanhuma., Noah, 10; Genesis Rabba 32.14; "Sefer haYashar", l.c.). Noah was constantly occupied in the ark; for he had to attend to
Noah's Ark remains a secular and religious symbol of peace today. In contrast to the Jewish tradition, which uses a term that can be translated as a "box" or "chest" to describe the Ark, surah 29:15 of the Quran refers to it as a "safina", an ordinary ship, and surah 54:13 describes the ark as "a thing of boards and nails". Abd Allah ibn Abbas, a contemporary of Muhammad, wrote that Noah was in doubt as to what shape to make the ark, and that Allah revealed to him that it was to be shaped like a bird's belly and fashioned of