69 – Al-Hasan ibn Yahya ibn Kathir al-ʿAnbari narrated to us. He said: Muhammad ibn Kathir al-Sanʿani narrated to us, from Makhlad ibn Husayn, from Abu Bakr ibn al-Fadl al-ʿAtaki, from ʿAbd al-Rahman ibn Ziyad ibn Anʿam, who said:

“Allah revealed to a prophet from among the prophets of the Children of Israel whose name was Jeremiah:

‘Stand in the very midst of your people, for they have hearts with which they do not comprehend, eyes with which they do not see, and ears with which they do not hear. Ask them: how did they find the outcome of obeying Me? Ask them: how did they find the outcome of disobeying Me? Ask them: has anyone ever been wretched through obeying Me, or has anyone ever found happiness through disobeying Me?

Even the cattle remember their pastures and hurry back to them, yet these people have abandoned the very command by which (…) and have sought honour where it cannot be found. Their kings have been ungrateful for My favour, and their nobles have gained no benefit from the wisdom they possess of Me. They have stored evil within their breasts and trained their tongues to lie.

By My might and majesty, I shall surely rouse against them forces whose faces they do not recognise, whose speech they do not understand, and who will feel no mercy for their weeping. I will set over them a harsh, tyrannical king whose armies are like masses of cloud; the charge of his horsemen is like the swoop of falcons, and the flapping of his standards like the wings of eagles. They will make prosperous cities desolate and villages a barren wilderness.

Woe to the people of Ilia and its inhabitants! How I shall let loose captivity upon them and humble them by the sword! I will exchange their arrogant clamour for the shrieks of skulls, trade their honour for humiliation, and their satiety for hunger. I will make their flesh something cast upon the earth and their bones exposed to the sun.’

The prophet said, ‘My Lord! You are going to destroy this community and lay waste to this city, yet they are the offspring of Your intimate friend Abraham, the nation of Your chosen one Moses, and the people of Your prophet David. Which nation, then, can feel secure from Your design after this nation? And which city will dare defy You ⦗106⦘ after this city?’

Allah revealed to him: ‘I honoured Abraham, Moses, and David only through their obedience to Me; had they disobeyed Me, I would have relegated them to the ranks of the sinners. The generations before you used to treat disobedience to Me lightly, until the generation you are in—who have flaunted their disobedience atop the mountains, beneath the shade of the trees, and in the depths of the valleys. When I saw that, I commanded the heaven and it became a sheet of iron; I commanded the earth and it became a plate of copper—no sky would send down rain and no earth would bring forth vegetation. Should the sky rain, I unleash upon them locusts, grasshoppers, and crickets; and if, in spite of that, they harvest anything and store it in their houses, its blessing is stripped away. Then they call upon Me, and I do not answer them.’”