Tafsir of Surah Yunus - Verse 18

What do the Idolators believe about Their Gods

Allah reproaches the idolators that worshipped others beside Allah, thinking that those gods would intercede for them before Allah. Allah states that these gods do not harm or benefit. They don't have any authority over anything, nor do they own anything. These gods can never do what the idolators had claimed about them. That is why Allah said:

قُلْ أَتُنَبِّئُونَ اللَّهَ بِمَا لاَ يَعْلَمُ فِى السَّمَـوَتِ وَلاَ فِى الاٌّرْضِ

(Say: `Do you inform Allah of that which He knows not in the heavens and on the earth') Ibn Jarir said: "This means, `Are you telling Allah about what may not happen in the heavens and earth' Allah then announced that His Glorious Self is far above their Shirk and Kufr by saying:

سُبْحَانَهُ وَتَعَالَى عَمَّا يُشْرِكُونَ

(Glorified and Exalted is He above all that which they associate as partners (with Him)!)

Shirk is New

Allah then tells us that Shirk was new among mankind. It was not in existence in the beginning. He tells us that people were believers in one religion and that religion was Islam. Ibn `Abbas said: "There were ten centuries between Adam and Nuh. They were all on Islam. Then differences among people took place. They worshipped idols and rivals. So Allah sent extensive evidence and irrefutable proof with His Messengers."

لِّيَهْلِكَ مَنْ هَلَكَ عَن بَيِّنَةٍ وَيَحْيَى مَنْ حَىَّ عَن بَيِّنَةٍ

(So that those who were to be destroyed (for rejecting the faith) might be destroyed after a clear evidence, and those who were to live might live after a clear evidence.)8:42 Allah's statement:

وَلَوْلاَ كَلِمَةٌ سَبَقَتْ مِن رَّبِّكَ

(And had not it been for a Word that went forth before from your Lord...) means that if Allah had not decreed He would not punish anyone until the evidence is established against them. And also that if He had not given creatures a respite until a defined term had passed, He would have judged among them in what they disputed. Then He would have caused the believers to be happy and delighted and the disbelievers to be miserable and wretched.

The last verse (17) emphasizes the subject conclusively by warning that attributing any statement to Allah Ta` ala that was not His Word, or denying what actually was, were crimes deserving severe punishment.

The events that occur in this world of ours seem, outwardly, to be the result of certain material causes, but the reality is that God’s control and management have been the underlying factors in all these events. In this world nobody has any personal or intrinsic power at all. A man is a monotheist (believing in the oneness of God) if he goes beyond the outwardly apparent phenomena and reaches the invisible God through them. As opposed to this, he is a polytheist (believing in partners to God) if he can go no further than outwardly apparent phenomena and if he confers on created things the status of their Creator. In this world nobody except God has the power to grant benefits or to inflict harm. A person who realises this truth devotes all his attention to God. He worships only God; he fears only Him and reposes his hopes in Him alone; he makes the one and only God his all. Unlike him, those who are preoccupied by mere things, make somebody other than God their God, according to their inclinations, and attach to these false gods such hopes and fears as should have been directed towards the one and only God. One form of these wrongful ideas is the belief in ‘recommendation.’ People suppose that there are some superior beings among human beings and among creatures other than human beings, who are holy in the eyes of God; God hears their recommendation and on the basis of this, He takes a decision about granting worldly provision and salvation in the after-life. But this kind of belief is false; it amounts to an underestimation of God’s godliness. God is free of every kind of shirk (imputing partners to God). No such belief befits the image of the qualities of God as is introduced and projected by the immense universe created by Him. Any such belief would mean that God is not what He seems to be in the mirror of His creative attributes, or that there is a contradiction in His attributes. Obviously, neither of these alternatives is possible.