to believe the word of the above messengers; consequently, they suffered God's wrath. Each unit follows a similar pattern: first, God describes the peoples’ refusal to believe and the resultant punishment for refusing to accept His warnings. As Carl Ernst writes in How to Read the Qur’an, surahs from the middle to late Meccan period follow a “tripartite division”, in which one observes a “ring structure, beginning and ending with parallel sections” of divine praise, heavy threats for the unbelievers, and staunch affirmations of the revelation. These parts bookend a somewhat larger middle section, which is “typically a narrative of prophecy and struggle”. Thus, this Meccan surah seems to connect the early Meccan period with the later, as traces of the shorter, more affirmative surahs can be found in particular verses, which resemble “powerful oath formulations” and generate fear in those who may not fully accept the Islamic faith. Within the parallel sections of the ring-like structure of this surah are narratives of the critical choices that Muhammad's audience will face—whether to act as did the previous peoples and to reject Muhammad's message and endure unbearable consequences or to accept God as “the Lord of Mercy, the Giver of Mercy,” and to live eternally “among Gardens and rivers”. Such a choice acts as a testament to God's omnipotence and utter omniscience. 18 “everything is recorded” God, is all-knowing, as the surah both begins and ends with a warning that “everything is recorded” and “everything they do is noted in their records: every action, great or small is recorded”. The first eight verses distinctly refer to events on the Day of Judgment, especially the fates of the disbelievers on that “hard day”, except for the splitting of the moon, since that was a still-unexplained celestial event witnessed by many of the Companions in or around Mecca, and the characteristic rejection of such miraculous events as sorcery by the unbelievers. The first verse in particular uses “the Hour" (as-saa’a) to refer the end times and is used in 46 instances throughout the Quran to make mention of the hour (likely a symbolic temporal period) when Allah will judge humankind and punish the unbelievers. This first section is marked by its apocryphal tone and its introduction to the themes of disbelief and failure to heed warnings, which echo through the remainder of the surah. 9-42 previous instances where the word of God was