Allah takes the souls at the time of their death, and those that do not die [He takes] during their sleep. Then He keeps those for which He has decreed death and releases the others for a specified term. Indeed in that are signs for a people who give thought. 42 Or choose they intercessors other than Allah? Say: What! Even though they have power over nothing and have no intelligence? 43 Proclaim, “To Allah only* belongs all the intercession! For Him only is the kingship of the heavens and the earth; and then it is towards you have to return.” (*Allah does not intercede – He gives the permission to intercede with Him, to whomever He wills.) 44 And yet, whenever God alone is mentioned, the hearts of those who will not believe in the life to come contract with bitter aversion - whereas, when those [imaginary powers] are mentioned side by side with Him, lo, they rejoice! 45 Say: “O Allah, the Originator of the heavens and the earth, the Knower of the unseen and the seen, You it is Who will judge among Your servants concerning what they differed. 46 But if those who are bent on evildoing possessed all that is on earth, and twice as much, they would surely offer it as ransom from the awful suffering [that will befall them] on the Day of Resurrection: for, something with which they had not reckoned before will [by then] have been made obvious to them by God; 47 Their bad deeds will become public and they will be surrounded by the torment which they had mocked during their worldly life. 48 When an affliction befalls man, he cries out to Us; but when We grant him a favour from Us, he says: “I have been granted this on account of my knowledge.” Nay; this (favour) is a test; but most of them do not know. 49 Thus did the (generations) before them say! But all that they did was of no profit to them. 50 So there befell them the evil (consequences) of what they earned; and (as for) those who are unjust from among these, there shall befall them the evil (consequences) of what they earn, and they shall not escape. 51 Do they not know that God grants abundant sustenance to anyone He wishes and gives sparingly to anyone He pleases? Surely there are signs in this for those who believe. 52