۞ 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 He placed therein (i.e. the earth) firm mountains from above it, and He blessed it, and measured therein its sustenance (for its dwellers) in four Days equal (i.e. all these four 'days' were equal in the length of time), for all those who ask (about its creation). 10 Then He turned to the heaven while it was all smoke. He said to the heaven and the earth: “Come (into being), willingly or unwillingly.” They said: “Here we come (into being) in willing obeisance.” 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, then say, "I have warned you of a thunderbolt like the thunderbolt [that struck] 'Aad and Thamud. 13 when the messengers came to them from before them and behind them, saying, 'Worship none but God!" They said, "If our Lord had willed, He would have sent down angels [to us]. Therefore, we shall never believe in your message.'" 14 Now the 'Ad behaved arrogantly through the land, against (all) truth and reason, and said: "Who is superior to us in strength?" What! did they not see that Allah, Who created them, was superior to them in strength? But they continued to reject 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 We only rescued the believers who had fear of God. 18