Noah’s Flood Was Local, Not Global
According to the Old Testament, all humans and animals perished because the entire earth was submerged in the flood (OT, Genesis 7:19-20). Only those on Noah’s ark were saved.
However, the Quran says that only the people of Noah were punished for their cruelty, not the whole earth (“We drowned the people of Noah when they denied the messengers…” The Quran, al-Furqan [25] 37. Also al-Araf [7] 64; al-Anbiya [21] 77; Yunus [10 ] 73). Likewise, the destruction of the tribes of Lut, Ad and Thamud took place locally.
Only the animals living in that region, not all the animals on earth, were taken into Noah’s vessel. Because the order “…Load a pair of each kind onto it” was given at the beginning of the same verse, “when the tannoor / oven starts to boil…” (The Quran, Hud [11] 40). Therefore, the order to take the animals onto the vessel was not given long before, but when the waters began to rise.
Based on all this information, we can say that the destruction and flood that occurred during the time of Noah was not for all people, but only for people who committed cruelty.