Allah takes away souls at the time of their death (the temporary death of sleep), and those who do not die during their sleep He withholds that upon which He has decreed death, but turns lose the other till a stated term. Surely, there are signs in this for a nation who contemplate. 42 Have they taken others for intercessors besides God? Say, "Even though they have no power nor understanding?" 43 Say: Unto Allah belongeth all intercession. His is the Sovereignty of the heavens and the earth. And afterward unto Him ye will be brought back. 44 And yet, whenever God alone is mentioned, the hearts of those who will not believe in the life to come contract with bitter aversion - whereas, when those [imaginary powers] are mentioned side by side with Him, lo, they rejoice! 45 Say: O Allah! Creator of the heavens and the earth! Knower of the Invisible and the Visible! Thou wilt judge between Thy slaves concerning that wherein they used to differ. 46 Even if the sinners possessed whatever is in the heavens and the earth, and as much more, they would offer it to ransom themselves from the torment of the Day of Resurrection; yet what they did not even imagine would appear to them from God; 47 and obvious to them will have become the evil that they had wrought [in life]: and thus shall they be overwhelmed by the very truth which they were wont to deride. 48 So when some hardship reaches man, he prays to Us; then later when We bestow a favour upon him, he says, “I obtained this only because of some knowledge”; in fact it is a test, but most of them do not have any knowledge. 49 Their predecessors also said the same, but their earnings proved of no avail to them, 50 in that the evils of that they earned smote them. The evildoers of these men, they too shall be smitten by the evils -- of that they earned; they will not be able to frustrate it. 51 Do they not know that Allah enlarges and straitens the provision of whomsoever He pleases? Therein are Signs for those that believe. 52