A long story about Noah sets the tone for this sūra, in which a series of messengers faithfully preach yet experience resistance from their audiences. The sūra also includes a substantial version of the story of the messengers who came to Abraham and Lot. The characters named and the sequence of their stories is very similar to Sūras 7 and 26.

This sūra gets its name from the story of Hūd, thought by some to be an Arabian prophetic figure (vv. 50–60). Hūd is one of a few figures in this sūra who are not familiar from the Bible; the others are Ṣāliḥ and Shu‘ayb. In each case the Quran describes the people to whom each messenger was sent. Scholars have speculated on the identity of these three figures but have not been able to discover their place in history.

The sūra begins with the general preaching of the “messenger” and the responses of his audience. Each of the stories in the sūra end with God’s destruction of people who do not heed the messenger’s warning. After all the stories are presented, the Quran speaks directly to the messenger to tell him that the purpose of all these narratives is to strengthen his heart.