۞ 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 He placed therein firm hills rising above it, and blessed it and measured therein its sustenance in four Days, alike for (all) who ask; 10 Thereafter turned He to the heaven and it was as smoke, and said unto it and unto the earth: come ye twain, willingly or loth. They said: we come willingly. 11 And He [it is who] decreed that they become seven heavens in two aeons, and imparted unto each heaven its function. And We adorned the skies nearest to the earth with lights, and made them secure: such is the ordaining of the Almighty, the All-Knowing. 12 But if they turn away, then say: I warn you of a thunderbolt like the thunderbolt (which fell of old upon the tribes) of A'ad and Thamud; 13 When their apostles came to them from before them and from behind them, saying, Serve nothing but Allah, they said: If our Lord had pleased He would certainly have sent down angels, so we are surely unbelievers in that with which you are sent. 14 Then as to Ad, they were unjustly proud in the land, and they said: Who is mightier in strength than we? Did they not see that Allah Who created them was mightier than they in strength, and they denied Our communications? 15 So We sent upon them furious wind in days of evil omen (for them) that We might give them a taste of disgracing torment in this present worldly life, but surely the torment of the Hereafter will be more disgracing, and they will never be helped. 16 And as for the tribe of the Thamud We guided them but they preferred blindness to the guidance, wherefore the bolt of the torment of abjection laid hold of them because of that which they had been earning. 17 And We delivered those who believed and had been fearing. 18