Tafsir of Surah Al-An'am - Verse 136

Some Acts of Shirk

Allah chastises and criticizes the idolators who invented innovations, Kufr and Shirk, and called on partners and rivals with Allah among His creation, although He created every thing, all praise is due to Him. This is why Allah said,

وَجَعَلُواْ لِلَّهِ مِمَّا ذَرَأَ

(And they assign to Allah from that which He has created,)

مِنَ الْحَرْثِ

(of the tilth) meaning, fruits and produce,

وَالاٌّنْعَامِ نَصِيباً

(and of the cattle a share) meaning a part and a section.

فَقَالُواْ هَـذَا لِلَّهِ بِزَعْمِهِمْ وَهَـذَا لِشُرَكَآئِنَا

(and they say: "This is for Allah," according to their claim, "and this is for our partners.") Allah said next,

فَمَا كَانَ لِشُرَكَآئِهِمْ فَلاَ يَصِلُ إِلَى اللَّهِ وَمَا كَانَ لِلَّهِ فَهُوَ يَصِلُ إِلَى شُرَكَآئِهِمْ

(But the share of their "partners" reaches not Allah, while the share of Allah reaches their "partners"!) `Ali bin Abi Talhah and Al-`Awfi narrated that Ibn `Abbas said; "When they, the enemies of Allah, would cultivate the land or collect produce, they would assign a part of it to Allah and another part to the idol. They would keep the share for the idol, whether land, produce or anything else, and preserve its division to such an extent that they would collect anything that accidentally falls from the share they assigned to Allah and add it to the share of the idol. If the water that they assigned for the idol irrigated something (a section of land, for instance) that they assigned for Allah, they would add whatever this water irrigated to the idol's share! If the land or produce that they assigned for Allah was accidentally mixed with the share that they assigned for the idol, they would say that the idol is poor. Therefore, they would add it to the share they assigned for the idol and would not return it to the share they assigned for Allah. If the water that they assigned for Allah irrigated what they assigned for the idol they would leave it (the produce) for the idol. They also made some of their other property sacred, like the Bahirah, Sa'ibah, Wasilah and Ham, assigning them to the idols, claiming that they do so as way of seeking a means of approach to Allah. Allah said,

وَجَعَلُواْ لِلَّهِ مِمَّا ذَرَأَ مِنَ الْحَرْثِ وَالاٌّنْعَامِ نَصِيباً

(And they assign to Allah a share of the tilth and cattle which He has created...)." Similar was said by Mujahid, Qatadah, As-Suddi and others. `Abdur-Rahman bin Zayd bin Aslam commented; "Every type of slaughter that they would assign for Allah, would never be eaten unless they mentioned the names of their idols when slaughtering it. Yet for what they sacrificed in the names of the idols, they would not mention Allah's Name when slaughtering it." He then recited the Ayah (6:136) until he reached,

سَآءَ مَا يَحْكُمُونَ

(Evil is the way they judge!) This Ayah means, evil is that which they determined, for they committed error in the division. Certainly, Allah is the Lord, Owner and Creator of all things and His is the dominion. All things are His property and under His supreme control, will and decree. There is no deity worthy of worship, or Lord, except Him. And even when the polytheists made this evil division, they did not preserve it, but cheated in it. Allah said in other Ayat,

وَيَجْعَلُونَ لِلَّهِ الْبَنَـتِ سُبْحَانَهُ وَلَهُمْ مَّا يَشْتَهُونَ

(And they assign daughters unto Allah -- glory be to Him -- and unto themselves what they desire.) 16:57, and

وَجَعَلُواْ لَهُ مِنْ عِبَادِهِ جُزْءًا إِنَّ الإنسَـنَ لَكَفُورٌ مُّبِينٌ

(Yet, they assign to some of His servants a share with Him. Verily, man is indeed a manifest ingrate!) 43:15, and,

أَلَكُمُ الذَّكَرُ وَلَهُ الاٍّنثَى - تِلْكَ إِذاً قِسْمَةٌ ضِيزَى

(Is it for you the males and for Him the females That indeed is a division most unfair!) 53:21-22.

In the fourth verse (136), the disbelievers of Arabia have been admonished for a particular error in their behaviour. The custom was that they would take out from the produce of their lands and from the income of their businesses a portion for Allah and a portion for their idols. The portion taken out for Allah they would spend on the poor and the needy while the portion taken out in the name of their idols they would spend on the priests and keepers of the temple of idols.

To begin with, enough was their injustice in that everything was created by Allah Ta` ala, and the produce which came from them was bestowed by Him, yet they went ahead and made idols to share in what was given by Him. On top of this, they would add insult to injury when, should there be a drop in produce, they would apply this shortfall against the portion they meant for Allah saying that Allah was Independent and did not need their things. Thus, they would exact the portion of their idols in full, as well as that of their own. On some occasion, if it so happened that something from the portion taken out for the idols, or from that of their own, went into the portion reserved for Allah, they would pick it up and take it out of there to keep their accounting straight! And if came the occasion when things were the reverse of it, that is, if anything belonging to the portion of Allah was thrown in their own portion, or in the portion of their idols, it was left where it was saying that Allah is need-free, therefore, any shortage in His share will not make any difference! The Holy Qur'an, taking notice of this crooked conduct of theirs, has said: سَاءَ مَا يَحْكُمُونَ (Evil is what they judge -136). It means that their judgment is evil and crude because they are not realizing that it is Allah who created them and created everything that appears to belong to them, yet they go about equating others with Him, and to top it all, they find excuses to shift elsewhere what, according to their own intention, was supposed to belong to Allah.

The Admonition for Disbelievers - A Lesson for Muslims

This is an admonition directed against the waywardness of the disbelievers of Arabia. However, by implication, it holds a sharp lesson for Muslims as well - Muslims who devote their full potential, their life given by Allah, their body and mind, into different sections. They would reserve part of their years and time in life for Allah and His worship - though the right of Allah demanded that all time frames of their living years should have been reserved to obey and worship Him alone. May be, they could have taken out some time for themselves too to take care of human compulsions - and even then, the truth is that the right of Allah that we be grateful to Him would have still remained unfulfilled! But, here we are, in our time and in our places, doing unbelievable things. If, in the twenty four hours of a day and night of our lives, we do get around to fix some time to be devoted to remember Allah and engage ourselves in what we know as His essential ` Ibadah, then strange things start happening. There comes an urgent need, a call or an appointment or something like that, and we be-come pragmatic all of a sudden. The function, the business, the need comes first. No postponement is made in what is pragmatic or personal. The urgency of work stays. The inevitability of rest time stays. The axe falls on nothing but the time which had been fixed for devotion to Allah through prayers and recitation of the Qur'an. This happens most of the time - emergency, urgency, sickness or any other call - what is the first casualty in this rush is nothing but the time that we had ear-marked for our Dhikr and ` Ibadah. We just cannot say how wrong, how ungrateful and how right-compromising this attitude is. May Allah Ta` ala keep us and all Muslims protected from it.

Man invents tangible deities because he does not have full faith in the intangible Supreme Being—God. In ancient times polytheists did, however, pay lip service to God, while reserving their real faith for their deities. This was evident from the inequitable way in which they apportioned their sacrificial offerings of grain and livestock to their deities on the one hand, and to God on the other. It was always the deities who were given preference in terms of the quantity and quality of the offerings, and never God. Moreover, when those who in reality are idolaters are ‘worshipping’ God, they devote a part of their prayers to that person, living or dead, whom they idolize. But when they worship the latter, they do not even mention the name of God. They will readily lavish upon a partner that ecstatic devotion which they should reserve for God. In any meeting held to extoll God’s greatness, the majesty and glory of the partner will somehow find a place; but in any meeting held to describe the greatness of the partner, there will be absolutely no mention of the majesty and glory of God. The importance of the ‘partner’ sometimes dominates minds to such an extent that a man will with pleasure sacrifice even his children for it—something which he will not do for the sake of God. All such acts are carried out in the name of God’s religion, but falsely so, because this amounts to attributing to God such precepts as had never been laid down by Him.