Harun said to him: "What...?" He said: Moses said to the Samiri: "What is your affair?" He said: "So I took a handful from the track of the messenger, and I threw it, and thus my soul prompted me." Moses then proceeded to the calf and placed files on it and filed it down while it was on the bank of the river. No one who had worshipped that calf drank from that water without his face turning yellow like gold. They said: "O Moses, what is our repentance?" He said: "That you slay one another." They took knives and a man began to kill his father, his brother, and his son, not caring whom he killed, until seventy thousand of them were killed. Then Allah revealed to Moses: "Command them to raise their hands, for I have forgiven those who were killed and I have accepted the repentance of those who remain."

The Saying of the Exalted: "And what made you hasten from your people, O Moses?"

13499 - From Muhammad ibn 'Ubadah ibn al-Bakhtari, [who said] Yazid ibn Harun narrated to us, [who said] Hammad informed us, from Simak, from Sa'id ibn Jubayr, from Ibn 'Abbas: That Harun passed by the Samiri while he was carving the calf and said to him: "What are you making?" He replied: "I am making something that neither harms nor benefits." Harun said: "O Allah, grant him what he asked for, according to what is in his self." Harun then passed on. The Samiri said: "O Allah, I ask You that it may low." So it lowed; whenever it lowed, they would prostrate to it, and whenever it lowed [again], they would raise their heads.

13500 - Muhammad ibn Yahya narrated to us, [who said] 'Ali ibn al-Madini informed us, [who said] Yazid ibn Zuray' narrated to us, [who said] 'Amarah narrated to us, [who said] 'Ikrimah narrated to us: That the Samiri saw the Messenger [Gabriel] and it was cast into his heart that if you take a handful from the track of this horse and throw it into something, and say to it "Be," it will be. So he took a handful from the track of the Messenger, and his fingers stiffened upon the handful. When Moses went to the appointed meeting place, and the Children of Israel had borrowed the jewelry of the family of Pharaoh, the Samiri said to them: "You have only been afflicted because of this jewelry, so gather it." They gathered it, and they kindled a fire over it, and it melted. The Samiri then reached for it, and it was cast into his heart that if you threw this handful into this [melted metal] and said "Be," it would be. So he threw the handful and said: "Be!" and it became a calf with a lowing sound. He said: "This is your god and the god of Moses."

The Saying of the Exalted: "Has the time seemed too long for you?"

13501 - From Mujahid (may Allah be pleased with him) regarding His saying: "Has the time seemed too long for you?" He says: The promise. And regarding His saying: "And you broke your promise to me," he says: My covenant. And regarding His saying: