Marmaduke Pickthall, The Meaning of The Glorious Koran. An Explanatory Translation (1930)
8. Lo! as for those who believe and do good works, for them is a reward enduring.
9. Say (O Muhammad, unto the idolaters): Disbelieve ye verily in Him Who created the earth in two Days,1 and ascribe ye unto Him rivals? He (and none else) is the Lord of the Worlds.
10. He placed therein firm hills rising above it, and blessed it and measured therein its sustenance in four Days, alike for (all) who ask;
11. Then turned He to the heaven when it was smoke, and said unto it and unto the earth: Come both of you, willingly or loth. They said: We come, obedient.
12. Then He ordained them seven heavens in two Days 1 and inspired in each heaven its mandate; and we decked the nether heaven with lamps, and rendered it inviolable.2 That is the measuring of the Mighty, the Knower.
13. But if they turn away, then say: I warn you of a thunderbolt like the thunderbolt (which fell of old upon the tribes) of A‘âd and Thamûd;
14. When their messengers came unto them from before them and behind them, saying: Worship none but Allah! they said: If our Lord had willed, He surely would have sent down angels (unto us), so lo! we are disbelievers in that wherewith ye have been sent.
15. As for A‘âd, they were arrogant in the land without right, and they said: Who is mightier than us in power? Could they not see that Allah Who created them, He was mightier than them in power? And they denied Our revelations.
16. Therefor We let loose on them a raging wind in evil days, that We might make them taste the torment of disgrace in the life of the world. And verily the doom of the
1 XXII, 47; XXXII, 5; LXX, 4.
2 XXXVII, 6–10; LXXII, 8–10.
