۞ 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 in it He placed mountains as anchors from above it, and blessings in it, and appointed the sustenance for those who dwell in it – all this in four days; a proper answer to those who question. 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 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 have warned you of a thunderbolt like the thunderbolt [that struck] 'Aad and 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 the tribe of 'Ad, they behaved arrogantly in the land without any justification and said, "Who is mightier than we in power?" Did they not see that God, who created them, was mightier than they in power? Still they continued to deny 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 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 delivered those who believed and were godfearing. 18