This work is a careful examination of the punishment narratives in the Qur[ham]an, focusingon the “triangular drama” among God, Muhammad (along with the believers), andthe unbelievers. Expanding the work of Horovitz, Bell, and others, Marshall's analysisbuilds on the observation that Qur[ham]anic narratives concerning earlier prophetic figures oftenreflect and comment on, more or less directly, the contemporary situation of the ProphetMuhammad. Many passages portray Noah, Hud, Salih, and others addressing their peoples intheir capacity as messengers of God. They are rebuked and meet with little success in their effortsto convince the unbelievers of their misguidance and to convert them to worship of the one trueGod. They then warn the unbelievers of the dire punishment that awaits them should they insist onrefusing to believe, but to no avail. God inflicts the threatened punishment upon the unrepentantpeoples, annihilating them in a cataclysmic event: the flood in the case of Noah's people; araging wind in the case of [ayn]Ad, the people of Hud; a shower of stones in the case ofLot's people; and so on. These narratives portray the relationship between the messengersand their recalcitrant audiences in some detail and can therefore serve as the basis for a fruitfulanalysis of the relationship between Muhammad and the unbelievers among his people, theQuraysh.