۞ Say: What! do you indeed disbelieve in Him Who created the earth in two periods, and do you set up equals with Him? That is the Lord of the Worlds. 9 And He placed on the earth firmly set mountains over its surface, and He blessed it and determined therein its [creatures'] sustenance in four days without distinction - for [the information] of those who ask. 10 Then turned He to the heaven when it was smoke, and said unto it and unto the earth: Come both of you, willingly or loth. They said: We come, obedient. 11 So He determined them as seven heavens in two days, and revealed its commandment in every heaven.' 12 But if they turn aside, then say: I have warned you of a scourge like the scourge of Ad and Samood. 13 Lo! There came unto them [God's] apostles, speaking of what lay open before them and what was [still] beyond their ken, [and calling unto them,] "Worship none but God!" They answered: "If our Sustainer had willed [us to believe in what you say,] He would have sent down angels [as His message-bearers]. As it is, behold, we deny that there is any truth in what you [claim to] have been sent with!" 14 Now the 'Ad behaved arrogantly through the land, against (all) truth and reason, and said: "Who is superior to us in strength?" What! did they not see that Allah, Who created them, was superior to them in strength? But they continued to reject Our Signs! 15 and thereupon We let loose upon them a storm wind raging through days of misfortune, so as to give them, in the life of this world, a foretaste of suffering through humiliation: but [their] suffering in the life to come will be far more humiliating, and they will have none to succour them. 16 And as for Thamud, We showed and made clear to them the Path of Truth (Islamic Monotheism) through Our Messenger, (i.e. showed them the way of success), but they preferred blindness to guidance, so the Sa'iqah (a destructive awful cry, torment, hit, a thunderbolt) of disgracing torment seized them, because of what they used to earn. 17 But We delivered those who believed and practised righteousness. 18