Tell My servants, (O Muhammad), to say always that which is best. Verily it is Satan who sows discord among people. Satan indeed is an open enemy to mankind. 53 Your Lord knows you very well. He will have mercy on you if He will, or punish you if He will. We have not sent you to be their guardian. 54 And thy Lord knows very well all who are in the heavens and the earth; and We have preferred some Prophets over others; and We gave to David Psalms. 55 Tell them: "Call upon those whom you fancy to be (your helpers) instead of Him! They have no power to remove any affliction from you, nor can they shift it (to any other)." 56 Those [saintly beings] whom they invoke are themselves striving to obtain their Sustainer's favour - [even] those among them who are closest [to Him] - hoping for His grace and dreading His chastisement: for, verily, thy Sustainer's chastisement is something to beware of! 57 Not a town is there but We are going to destroy it before the Day of Judgment or to torment it with a severe torment; that is in the Book inscribed. 58 Nothing could stop Us from sending signs except that the earlier people had rejected them as lies. We sent to Thamud the she-camel as a token to make it clear to them, but they treated her cruelly; and We send signs only to deter. 59 And when We proclaimed to you, “Indeed all mankind is within the control of your Lord”; and We did not create the spectacle* which We showed you except to try mankind, and the Tree** which is cursed in the Qur’an; and We warn them – so nothing increases for them except extreme rebellion. (* The Ascent of the Holy Prophet to the heavens and beyond, which the disbelievers denied as just a dream. ** The Zakkum tree which will grow in hell and be the food for its inhabitants.) 60