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 Ibrahim said: My Lord! show me how Thou givest life to the dead, He said: What! and do you not believe? He said: Yes, but that my heart may be at ease. He said: Then take four of the birds, then train them to follow you, then place on every mountain a part of them, then call them, they will come to you flying; and know that Allah is Mighty, Wise. 260