until fifty thousand builders had assembled, apart from their assistants, hired laborers, and those who baked the bricks and plaster, fashioned the wood, and hammered the nails. They raised and fortified it until it attained a height that no structure built by any creature had ever reached. Allah willed thereby to put them to trial. When they had finished it, Pharaoh climbed to its top and ordered that an arrow be brought. He shot it toward the sky, and it was returned to him smeared with blood. He said, “I have killed the God of Moses.”

As the sun was setting, Allah sent Gabriel, who struck it with his wing and split it into three pieces. One piece fell upon Pharaoh’s army and killed one million of them; another fell into the sea, and the third fell in the west. No one who had done any work on it survived. (1) This is the meaning of His saying, Exalted is He: “So kindle for me, O Haman, a fire over clay, and build for me a lofty tower, that I may look upon the God of Moses”—that is, look at Him and ascertain His condition—“though I think him,” meaning Moses, “to be among the liars,” in his claim that the earth and its creatures have a god other than me, and that he is His messenger.

“And he and his soldiers acted arrogantly in the land without right, and thought that they would not be returned to Us. So We seized him and his soldiers and cast them into the sea. So see what was the end of the wrongdoers. And We made them leaders calling to the Fire, and on the Day of Resurrection they will not be helped. We caused a curse to pursue them in this world, and on the Day of Resurrection they will be among the condemned.” (39–42)

“And he and his soldiers acted arrogantly in the land without right, and thought that they would not be returned to Us.” Nafiʿ, Hamzah, al-Kisaʾi, and Yaʿqub recited it in the active voice, “they will return,” with an a-vowel on the initial y and an i-vowel on the j; the remaining reciters read it in the passive voice, “they will be returned,” with a u-vowel on the y and an a-vowel on the j. (2)

“So We seized him and his soldiers and cast them”—that is, hurled them—“into the sea. So see what was the end of the wrongdoers.”

“And We made them leaders,” that is, commanders and chiefs, “calling to the Fire, and on the Day of Resurrection they will not be helped”: they will not be shielded from the punishment.

“We caused a curse to pursue them in this world,” that is, disgrace and punishment, “and on the Day of Resurrection they will be among the condemned”: the banished and accursed. Abu ʿUbaydah said: among those destroyed. Ibn ʿAbbas said: “Among the…”