—the appointed time with his Lord came to forty nights.

Another example is His saying, “We drowned Pharaoh’s people while you were looking on” (2:50). The way in which He drowned them is spelled out elsewhere, as in: “Strike the sea with your staff, and it split…” and: “Strike for them a dry path through the sea….”

A similar case is when the occurrence of a command is mentioned without indicating whether it was first issued in an absolute form (tanjīz) or a conditional one (taʿlīq), and this is then clarified in another passage. Thus He says, “When We said to the angels, ‘Prostrate yourselves before Adam…’,” yet here He does not state whether the command was unconditional or conditional at the outset. In al-Ḥijr and Ṣād He explains that it was originally conditional: “When your Lord said to the angels, ‘I am creating a human being from dry clay, molded from dark mud. So when I have fashioned him and breathed into him of My spirit, fall down before him in prostration’” (15:28–29); and: “When your Lord said to the angels, ‘I am creating a human being from clay. So when I have fashioned him and breathed into him of My spirit, fall down before him in prostration’” (38:71–72).

Among the Qur’an’s other modes of clarification is that it may cite a demand and then, in another place, explain what was really intended by that demand. For example, in al-Anʿām He says, “They say, ‘Why has no angel been sent down to him?’ Had We sent down an angel, the matter would have been decided…”; He makes clear in al-Furqān that what they wanted was another warner to accompany him—may Allah bless him and grant him peace: “And they say, ‘What is wrong with this Messenger? He eats food and walks in the markets. Why has no angel been sent down to him so that he might be a warner along with him?’” (25:7).

Yet another type of clarification is that something may be mentioned in one passage, and elsewhere something connected to it is supplied—its cause, its object, a locative or temporal circumstance, or some other attachment. An example of mentioning