۞ SAY: "Would you indeed deny Him who has created the earth in two aeons? And do you claim that there is any power that could rival Him, the Sustainer of all the worlds?" 9 And He placed therein mountains firmly rooted rising above it, and blessed it, and ordained therein the sustenance thereof, all this in four days, complete; this for the inquirers. 10 Then He lifted Himself to heaven when it was smoke, and said to it and to the earth, "Come willingly, or unwillingly!" They said, "We come willingly." 11 Then He decreed them as seven heavens in two days, and revealed unto each heaven the command thereof; and We bedecked the nether heaven with lamps and placed therein a guard. That is the ordinance of the Mighty, the Knower. 12 But if they turn away, say thou: "I have warned you of a stunning Punishment (as of thunder and lightning) like that which (overtook) the 'Ad and the Thamud!" 13 When their messengers came unto them from before them and behind them, saying: Worship none but Allah! they said: If our Lord had willed, He surely would have sent down angels (unto us), so lo! we are disbelievers in that wherewith ye have been sent. 14 As for Ad, they waxed proud in the earth without right, and they said, 'Who is stronger than we in might?' What, did they not see that God, who created them, was stronger than they in might? And they denied Our signs. 15 so We let loose upon them a raging wind over several inauspicious days, so that We might make them taste the torment of humiliation in the life of this world, and surely the torment of the Hereafter will be more humiliating. They shall have none to help them. 16 And as for Thamud, We guided them, but they preferred blindness over guidance, so the thunderbolt of humiliating punishment seized them for what they used to earn. 17 We only rescued the believers who had fear of God. 18