20 It is just possible that the act of Koleib, chief of the Banu Taghlib tribe, in killing the milch camel of Basûs, a female relative of his wife of Bani-Bakr lineage-which led to a forty years' war between these two tribes, A.D. 490-may have been worked up by Muhammad into this account of the persecutions of Saleh.
21 See Sura xxiv. 176, p. 109.
22 This verse may contain an implied reference to the famine with which Mecca had been visited, and fix the date of this part of the Sura. Comp. verse 127.
23 Lit. plot, stratagem.
24 Comp. the passage from Pirke R. Eliezer, c. 48, who makes Moses perform this miracle in the presence of Pharaoh, which the Scripture (Ex. vii.) account does not. The Muhammadan tradition is that Moses was a black.
25 Lit. cause him to hope, temporise with him.
26 Lit. male ominati sunt. Mar. They traced their calamities to Moses. So Sale. Kas. But Ullmann. renders, they attributed their misfortunes to the predictions of Moses.
27 In Suras [lxvii.] xvii. and [lxviii.] Muhammad speaks of nine plagues. The flood is not mentioned in the Scripture.
28 Lit. when we removed from them the plague until a period at which they should arrive.
29 Lit. that in which these are.