the door and looked. He said: “The sky is as it was.” Then he said: “Open the lower door and look at the earth. How do you see it?” He did so and said: “I see the earth like a vast expanse of water, and the mountains like smoke.” (1)

The eagles flew for another day and ascended until the wind came between them and further flight. Nimrod said to his companion: “Open both doors.” He opened the upper one, and there was the sky as it had been; then he opened the lower one, and there was the earth, black and dark. Then a voice called out: “O tyrant, where do you intend to go?”

Ikrimah said: A boy was with him in the chest, and he had brought along a bow and arrows. He shot an arrow, and it returned to him smeared with the blood of a fish that had hurled itself from a sea into the air. It was also said that it was a bird struck by the arrow. He then said: “I have taken care of the god of heaven.”

He said: Nimrod then ordered his companion to lower the wooden poles and draw back the meat. He did so, and the eagles descended with the chest. The mountains heard the whirring of the chest and the eagles, and they were terrified, thinking that something had occurred from heaven and that the Hour had come. They nearly moved from their places. This is the meaning of His saying, exalted is He: “Even if their scheme were such as to make the mountains vanish.” (2)

“Never think that Allah would fail His messengers in His promise. Surely Allah is Almighty, Lord of Retribution—on the Day when the earth will be changed into another earth, and the heavens as well, and all will appear before Allah, the One, the Prevailing.” (47–48)

“Never think that Allah would fail His messengers in His promise,” by granting victory to His allies and destroying His enemies. The wording involves an inversion; its intended sense is: Do not think that Allah will fail His messengers in the promise He made to them: “Surely Allah is Almighty, Lord of Retribution.”

His saying, exalted is He: “On the Day when the earth will be changed into another earth, and the heavens as well.”

Ismail ibn Abd al-Qahir informed us; Abd al-Ghafir ibn Muhammad informed us; Muhammad ibn Isa al-Juludi informed us; Ibrahim ibn Muhammad ibn Yusuf informed us; Muslim ibn al-Hajjaj narrated to us; Abu Bakr ibn Abi Shaybah narrated to us; Khalid ibn Makhlad narrated to us, from Muhammad ibn Jafar ibn Abi Kathir, who said: Abu Hazim ibn Dinar narrated to me from Sahl ibn Sad al-Saidi, may Allah be pleased with him, who said: The Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said: “On the Day of Resurrection, people will be gathered upon a white, reddish-white land, like a loaf of refined flour, with no distinguishing mark belonging to anyone.” (3)