ART THOU NOT aware of that [king] who argued with Abraham about his Sustainer, [simply] because God had granted him kingship? Lo! Abraham said: "My Sustainer is He who grants life and deals death." [The king] replied: "I [too] grant life and deal death!" Said Abraham: "Verily, God causes the sun to rise in the east; cause it, then, to rise in the west!" Thereupon he who was bent on denying the truth remained dumbfounded: for God does not guide people who [deliberately] do wrong. 258 Or, the like unto him who passed by a town, and it lay overturned on its roofs. He said: how shall Allah quicken this after the death thereof? Thereupon Allah made him dead for a hundred years, and thereafter raised him and said: how long hast thou tarried? He said: I have tarried any day, or part of any day. Allah said: nay! thou hast tarried a hundred years: look at thy food and thy drink, they have not rotten, and look at thine ass; and this We have done in order that We may make of thee a sign unto men; and look thou at the bones, how we shall make them stand up and clothe them with flesh. Then when it became manifest unto him he said: I know that verily Allah is over everything Potent. 259 And when Abraham said, 'My Lord, show me how Thou wilt give life to the dead,' He said, 'Why, dost thou not believe?' 'Yes,' he said, 'but that my heart may be at rest.' Said He, 'Take four birds, and twist them to thee, then set a part of them on every hill, then summon them, and they will come to thee running. And do thou know that God is All-mighty, All-wise.' 260