Hamzah said: I heard Abu Ja'far addressing them, and I looked, and behold, they were two youths, the likes of whom I had never seen in beauty. Then he [Abu Ja'far] recited this verse: {And it is He who begins creation; then He repeats it, and that is [even] easier for Him. To Him belongs the highest attribute in the heavens and the earth. And He is the Exalted in Might, the Wise} 1 .
And the words of the Almighty: {Have they not seen how many a generation We destroyed before them which We had established upon the earth as We have not established you? And We sent [rain from] the sky upon them in abundance and made rivers flow beneath them; then We destroyed them for their sins and brought forth after them a generation of others} 2 .
He says: Have you not looked upon these beasts among the cattle, the sheep, the wild animals, the monkeys, the pigs, the dogs, and the rest of the metamorphosed entities—those who have settled into Dissolution (Faskh), Metamorphosis (Maskh), Solidification (Rusuqh), and Abjection (Wasukh)? Those whom We had established upon the earth, made them kings, and bestowed upon them favors in abundance, yet they disbelieved in them; so they were punished by what they are [now] in of various types of torment.