It is God who takes away men's souls upon their death and the souls of the living during their sleep. Then He withholds those for whom He has ordained death and restores the souls of others for an appointed term. There are certainly signs in this for those who reflect. 42 Or have they taken others instead of Allah as intercessors? Say: “Will they intercede though they may have no power and though they may not even understand?” 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 When God alone is named, the hearts of those who do not believe in the Hereafter shrink with aversion, but when others are named instead of Him, they are filled with joy. 45 Say: 'O God, Thou originator of the heavens and the earth who knowest the Unseen and the Visible, Thou shalt judge between Thy servants touching that whereon they are at variance.' 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 And there will appear to them the evils they had earned, and they will be enveloped by what they used to ridicule. 48 And when adversity touches man, he calls upon Us; then when We bestow on him a favor from Us, he says, "I have only been given it because of [my] knowledge." Rather, it is a trial, but most of them do not know. 49 Those before them did say it indeed, but what they earned availed them not. 50 And the evil consequences of what they earned struck them. And those who have wronged of these [people] will be afflicted by the evil consequences of what they earned; and they will not cause failure. 51 Do they know that God outspreads and straitens His provision to whomsoever He will? Surely in that are signs for a people who believe. 52