they returned from their festival, they ate it. They said to Abraham, “Will you not go out with us tomorrow to our festival?” So he looked at the stars and said, “Indeed, I am ill.” Ibn ‘Abbas said: “Afflicted by the plague.” They used to flee from the plague in great terror. Al-Hasan said: “Sick.” Muqatil said: “In pain.” Al-Dahhak said: “I will become ill.”

“So they turned away from him and departed. Then he slipped away to their gods and said, ‘Will you not eat? What is the matter with you that you do not speak?’ Then he turned upon them, striking with his right hand. And they came rushing toward him. He said, ‘Do you worship what you carve, while Allah created you and what you make?’ They said, ‘Build for him a structure, then cast him into the blazing Fire.’ They intended a plot against him, but We made them the lowest.”

“So they turned away from him and departed”: that is, for their festival. Abraham then entered upon the idols and broke them, as Allah, Exalted is He, says: “Then he slipped away to their gods”—that is, he turned toward them secretly. The expression “he slipped away” is not used unless the person conceals his going and coming. Then he said to them mockingly, “Will you not eat?”—that is, the food laid out before you.

“What is the matter with you that you do not speak? Then he turned upon them”: that is, he turned against them, “striking with his right hand”—meaning, he struck them with his right hand, since it is stronger for work than the left. It was also said that “with his right hand” means: with strength. And it was said that it refers to the oath he had previously made: “By Allah, I shall surely devise a plan against your idols” (al-Anbiya’ 21:57).

“And they came rushing toward him”: that is, toward Abraham, hurrying. They had been informed of what Abraham had done to their gods, so they hastened to him to seize him.

Al-A‘mash and Hamzah recited it yuziffūna, with a u-vowel on the initial letter, while the others recited it with an a-vowel. Both are dialectal forms. It was also said that the u-vowelled reading means that they urged their mounts onward with earnestness and speed.

Abraham said to them by way of argument: “Do you worship what you carve?”—that is, what you carve with your own hands.

“While Allah created you and what you make”: that is, the idols you make with your hands. This is evidence that the deeds of the servants are created by Allah, Exalted is He.

“They said, ‘Build for him a structure, then cast him into the blazing Fire’”: that is, into the main body of the fire. Muqatil said: They built for him a wall of stone, thirty cubits high and twenty cubits wide. They filled it with firewood, kindled the fire in it, and cast him into it.

“They intended a plot against him”: that is, evil—namely, to burn him. “But We made them the lowest”: that is, the vanquished, for Allah, Exalted is He, kept Abraham safe and repelled their plot.