تَرْمِيهِم بِحِجَارَةٍ مِّن سِجِّيلٍ
Tar meehim bi hi jaaratim min sij jeel
Które obrzuciły ich kamieniami z palonej gliny?
pelting them with stones of baked clay,
Sijjīl is a word the early philologists argued over. Some read it as arabised Persian, stone and clay together; others tied it to sijill, a written record, which would make the stones marked for the men they fell on. The same phrase describes what came down on the people of Lut at 11:82 and 15:74, so an imperial army meets a punishment already known from the older stories.