It is related after the Commander of the Faithful, A’li—
may Allah be gracious to him—that the above phrase
alludes to the breaking out and rising of the morn. Others
affirm that it means the bubbling forth of water from the
face of the earth. Qotadah says: ‘Tannûr was a high
place where the water gushed forth.’ Others assert that
the word Tannûr means a real oven, in which the wife or
daughter of Nûh baked bread. Hasan Bossry tells us that
it was an oven in which Adam baked bread, and which
Nûh had inherited; it was [built] in the vicinity of Babel,
and near the mosque of Kufah, and at that place Nûh
embarked on board his ship. Muqâtl says it was in Syria,
in a place called A’inu-l-vard, near Ba’lbek; it is also said
to have been in India. Some say that Nûh was standing
on a baker’s oven, and on the baker’s saying, by way of
derision, ‘Where is that water with which thou hast
threatened us?’ Nûh replied, ‘From thy oven,’ and at that
very moment the water commenced to boil from it.