We have sent forth other Messengers before you and given them wives and descendants. Yet none of them could bring a sign except by the permission of Allah. Every term has its Book. 38 Allah effaces whatever He wills and retains whatever He wills. With Him is the Mother of the Book. 39 Whether We show thee a part of that We promise them, or We call thee to Us, it is thine only to deliver the Message, and Ours the reckoning. 40 Have, then, they [who deny the truth] never yet seen how We visit the earth [with Our punishment,] gradually depriving it of all that is best thereon? For, [when] God judges, there is no power that could repel His judgment: and swift in reckoning is He! 41 And those before them did indeed make plans, but all planning is Allah's; He knows what every soul earns, and the unbelievers shall come to know for whom is the (better) issue of the abode. 42 And those who disbelieve, say: "You (O Muhammad SAW) are not a Messenger." Say: "Sufficient for a witness between me and you is Allah and those too who have knowledge of the Scripture (such as 'Abdullah bin Salam and other Jews and Christians who embraced Islam)." 43