According to an authentic tradition from Imam Ja‘far as-Sadiq when Ibrahim was viewing the spectacles of the heavens and the earth, he witnessed the adultery of three couples. He prayed for their destruction and they died. The Almighty revealed to Ibrahim: O Ibrahim! Your prayers have been answered but do not curse My servants. If I had wished I would not have created them in the first place. My creatures are of three types. The first one worships Me and does not associate anyone or anything with Me. I reward these people. The second type one those who worship others by they are not beyond My control. The third kind are also polytheists but carry believers in their loins, and in future they shall beget a group who would worship Me.
Then Ibrahim saw a dead animal on the bank of a river, half inside the water and other half on land. The creatures of the sea were feeding of the part that lay in the water. In turn they were consumed by other aquatic animals. Similarly the land scavengers fed upon the other half of the dead animal. And when they returned to wilderness some of them were killed and eaten by other wild animals. Ibrahim was amazed and asked the Almighty how the raised the dead. Because some of them were being devoured by others, so how could the different parts of their body rejoin. The Almighty asked him if he did not believe that He enlivens the dead. Ibrahim said that he believed but desired to have his heart at ease. That is, “I want to see it with my own eyes, just as I have seen the other things.” The Almighty told him to catch four birds, cut them up, mince their meat and mix them thoroughly. Then to keep a portion of this mixture on ten different mountain peaks and then call them by their names. They shall rush to him. In another tradition the Almighty tells Ibrahim to call them through His name, and quote His Greatness and Might as intermediary. The four birds were, the cock, the pigeon, the peacock and the crow.