“He said, ‘This is a mercy from my Lord; but when my Lord’s promise comes to pass, He will level it to the ground. And my Lord’s promise is true.’” (98)

“Bring me” means: give me. Abu Bakr recited it as “Come to me,” meaning: come to me. “Pieces of iron” means pieces of iron; the singular is zubrah. So they brought him these, along with firewood, and he piled them one upon another. He continued placing iron over the firewood and firewood over the iron, “until, when he had filled the gap between the two mountain-sides.” Ibn Kathir, Ibn Amir, Abu Amr, and Yaqub recited it with the sad and dal vowelled with dammah; Abu Bakr recited the dal with sukun; while the others recited it with fathah. They are the two mountains. “He had filled” means: he levelled the space between the two sides of the mountains.

“He said, ‘Blow!’” It is related in the account that he placed charcoal and firewood amid the pieces of iron, then said, “Blow,” meaning: blow upon the fire.

“Then, when he had made it a fire,” that is, when the iron itself became fire, “he said, ‘Bring me.’” Hamzah and Abu Bakr recited it with a connected alif, while the others recited it with a separate alif. “That I may pour molten copper over it,” meaning: bring me molten copper so that I may pour it over it. Pouring means casting, and qiṭr is molten copper. The fire consumed the firewood, and the copper took the place of the firewood, until the iron adhered to the copper. (1)

Qatadah said: It was like a striped garment, with one black stripe and one red stripe. It is related in the account that it was fifty cubits wide, two hundred cubits high, and a farsakh long. “Thus they were unable to scale it,” that is, to climb over it because of its height and smoothness; “nor were they able to pierce through it” from beneath, because of its strength and solidity. Hamzah recited, “Thus they were unable,” with an emphatic ta, assimilating the ta of the verbal form into the ta.

“He said,” meaning Dhul-Qarnayn, “This,” meaning the barrier, “is a mercy,” that is, a blessing, “from my Lord. But when my Lord’s promise comes to pass”—it was said that this refers to the Day of Resurrection, and it was also said that it refers to the time of their emergence—“He will level it to the ground.” The scholars of Kufah recited it with a lengthened vowel and hamzah, meaning: He will make it smooth ground. The others recited it without lengthening, meaning: He will make it flattened and level with the surface of the earth. “And my Lord’s promise is true.”

Qatadah narrated from Abu Rafi, from Abu Hurayrah, tracing it back to the Prophet: “Gog and Magog dig through it every day, until, when they are about to see the rays of the sun, the one placed over them says, ‘Go back, and tomorrow you will dig through it’