Allah knoweth that which each female beareth and that which the wombs want and that which they exceed, and with Him everything is in due measure: 8 He is the knower of the unseen and the visible, the Great, the Most-Exalted. 9 Equal* are the one among you who speaks softly and one who speaks aloud, and one who is hidden during the night and one who walks during the daytime. (* For Allah.) 10 For his sake there are angels following one another, before him and behind him, who guard him by Allah's commandment; surely Allah does not change the condition of a people until they change their own condition; and when Allah intends evil to a people, there is no averting it, and besides Him they have no protector. 11 It is He Who doth show you the lightning, by way both of fear and of hope: It is He Who doth raise up the clouds, heavy with (fertilising) rain! 12 and the thunder extols His limitless glory and praises Him, and [so do] the angels, in awe of Him; and He [it is who] lets loose the thunderbolts and strikes with them whom He wills. And yet, they stubbornly argue about God, notwithstanding [all evidence] that He alone has the power to contrive whatever His unfathomable wisdom wills! 13 For Him (Alone) is the Word of Truth (i.e. none has the right to be worshipped but He). And those whom they (polytheists and disbelievers) invoke, answer them no more than one who stretches forth his hand (at the edge of a deep well) for water to reach his mouth, but it reaches him not, and the invocation of the disbelievers is nothing but an error (i.e. of no use). 14 And unto Allah (Alone) falls in prostration whoever is in the heavens and the earth, willingly or unwillingly, and so do their shadows in the mornings and in the afternoons. ۩ 15 (Muhammad), ask them, "Who is the Lord of the heavens and the earth?" Say, "It is God." Ask them, "Why then have you taken guardians other than God when such guardians can neither benefit nor harm themselves?" Ask them, "Are the seeing and the blind equal? Is light equal to darkness?" Do they consider that their idols have created anything like that of God, thus, both creations appear to them to be alike?" Say, "God alone is the Creator of all things and He is the One, the All-Dominant." 16 He sends down water from the skies, which flows in channels according to their capacity, with the scum borne on the surface of the torrent, as rises the scum when metals are heated on the fire for making ornaments and household utensils. This is how God determines truth and falsehood. The scum disappears like the foam on the bank, and that which is useful to man remains on the earth. That is how God sets forth precepts of wisdom. 17 For those who obey their Lord is excellence. For those who fail to obey, the reckoning will be hard, even if they possess and give as ransom all that there is on the earth, and as much more; and Hell will be their abode: How wretched is its wide expanse! 18