Surah An-Nahl, Ayah 59

Among the Behavior of the Idolators was vowing to Things that Allah had provided for Them to their gods

Allah tells us about some of the heinous deeds of those who used to perform baseless worship of other gods besides Him, such as idols and statues, with no grounds for doing so. They gave their idols a share of that which Allah had provided for them,

فَقَالُواْ هَـذَا لِلَّهِ بِزَعْمِهِمْ وَهَـذَا لِشُرَكَآئِنَا فَمَا كَانَ لِشُرَكَآئِهِمْ فَلاَ يَصِلُ إِلَى اللَّهِ وَمَا كَانَ لِلَّهِ فَهُوَ يَصِلُ إِلَى شُرَكَآئِهِمْ سَآءَ مَا يَحْكُمُونَ

(They say: "This is for Allah," according to their claim, "and this is for our partners." But the share of their "partners" is not directed to Allah, while the share of Allah is directed to their "partners"! How evil is that with which they judge) (6:136) That is they assigned a share for their idols as well as Allah, but they gave preference to their gods over Him, so Allah swore by His Almighty Self to question them about these lies and fabrications. He will most certainly call them to account for it and give them the unrelenting punishment in the fire of Hell. So He says,

The sense of the sentence: أَلَا سَاءَ مَا يَحْكُمُونَ (Beware evil is what they decide) appearing at the end of the second verse (59) actually incorporates these very two traits, as it has been pointed out in Tafsir Al-Bahr a1-Muhit with reference to Ibn ` Atiyyah. It means: (1) That their decision to take girls to be a punishment and a disgrace is by itself an evil decision; and (2) that the thing they would consider a matter of disgrace for their own selves, they would be too ready to attribute to Allah Ta’ ala.

From time immemorial, whenever a man finds himself in such trouble that he is absolutely helpless, he starts remembering God. Even polytheists and others who deny the truth behave in this way. This shows that the concept of God is embedded in human nature. When man has no further recourse, he turns at last to God. But strangely, man is so neglectful that when he is relieved of his trouble, he once again becomes preoccupied with the remembrance of his imaginary gods and attributes the benefit received by him to somebody other than God. Satan has introduced different types of false rites among the general people in order to perpetuate and strengthen their belief that imaginary gods are worthy of worship. One of them is to set apart a share of their income for them. Such ceremonies are a sort of falsity in the world of God, because this amounts to giving thanks to entities other than God for the benefits received from Him.