۞ Say, "What! Do you indeed deny Him who created the earth in two Days [periods] and do you set up equals with Him? He is the Lord of the Universe." 9 And He made in it mountains above its surface, and He blessed therein and made therein its foods, in four periods: alike for the seekers. 10 Then He turned to the heavens, and it was smoke. So He said to it and the earth: "Come with willing obedience or perforce." They said: "We come willingly." 11 So He ordained them seven heavens in two periods, and revealed in every heaven its affair; and We adorned the lower heaven with brilliant stars and (made it) to guard; that is the decree of the Mighty, the Knowing. 12 But if they turn away, then say, "I have warned you of a thunderbolt like the thunderbolt [that struck] 'Aad and Thamud. 13 When the Messengers (of Allah) came to them from the front and from the rear, saying: “Do not serve any but Allah”; they said: “Had our Lord so willed, He would have sent down angels. So we deny the Message you have brought.” 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 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 gave them guidance, but they preferred blindness to the guidance, so the bolt of the doom of humiliation overtook them because of what they used to earn. 17 and We saved those who believed and feared Allah. 18