my Lord sent to me to keep me company therein.” Nimrod said: “Abraham, because of what I have seen of your God’s power and might in what He did for you—when you would worship and affirm the oneness of none but Him—I shall draw near to your God with an offering. I shall sacrifice four thousand cattle for Him.”
Abraham said to him: “Then Allah will not accept it from you so long as you remain upon your religion, until you leave it for my religion.” He replied, “I cannot relinquish my kingdom. But I shall sacrifice them for Him.” So Nimrod sacrificed them for Him, then ceased persecuting Abraham, and Allah protected him from him. (1)
Shuayb al-Jubba'i said: Abraham was cast into the Fire when he was sixteen years old. (2)
“They sought to harm him, but We made them the greatest losers. (70) And We saved him and Lot, bringing them to the land We blessed for all peoples.” (71)
Allah Most High says: “They sought to harm him, but We made them the greatest losers.” It is said that this means they lost their efforts and expenditure, and did not attain what they sought.
It is also said that Allah Most High sent mosquitoes against Nimrod and his people. They ate their flesh and drank their blood, and one entered his brain and destroyed him. His words, Most High is He: “And We saved him and Lot”—that is, from Nimrod and his people, out of the land of Iraq—“bringing them to the land We blessed for all peoples,” meaning the Levant. Allah blessed it with fertility, an abundance of trees, fruits, and rivers; and most of the prophets were sent from there.
Ubayy ibn Kab said: He called it blessed because there is no fresh water whose source does not spring from beneath the rock at Jerusalem.
Ahmad ibn Abd Allah al-Salihi informed us; Abu al-Husayn ibn Bishran informed us; Ismail ibn Muhammad al-Saffar informed us; Ahmad ibn Mansur al-Ramadi informed us; Abd al-Razzaq informed us; Mamar informed us, from Qatadah, that Umar ibn al-Khattab said to Kab: “Will you not move to Medina, where the Messenger of Allah emigrated and where his grave is?” Kab replied: “Commander of the Believers, I have found in the revealed Book of Allah that the Levant is Allah’s treasure among His lands, and that there are among its people His treasured servants.” (3)
Abu Said Abd Allah ibn Ahmad al-Tahiri informed us; my grandfather Abd al-Samad ibn Abd al-Rahman al-Bazzaz informed us; Muhammad ibn Zakariyya al-Adhafiri informed us; Ishaq al-Dayri informed us; Abd al-Razzaq informed us; Mamar informed us, from Qatadah, from Shahr ibn Hawshab, from Abdullah ibn Amr ibn al-As ⦗18/a⦘, who said: “I heard the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace,”