Surah Maryam, Ayah 83

The Idols of the Polytheists will deny Their Worship

Allah, the Exalted, informs about the disbelievers who associate partners with their Lord, that they have taken gods besides Allah, so that these gods may be a source of honor and might for them. They think that these gods give them power and make them victorious. Then, Allah mentions that the matter is not as they claim, and it will not be as they hope. He says,

كَلاَّ سَيَكْفُرُونَ بِعِبَـدَتِهِمْ

(Nay, but they will deny their worship of them,) on the Day of Judgement.

وَيَكُونُونَ عَلَيْهِمْ ضِدّاً

(and will become their adversaries.) This means that they will be foes in a state other than what they think about these gods. This is similar to Allah's statement,

Commentary

تَؤُزُّهُمْ أَزًّا

"Inciting them with all their incitements" - 19:83.

In Arabic language the words حَضّ – فَزّ – اَزّ - ھَزّ are synonymous, differing only in shade or degree, and mean to urge, incite, instigate. The word اَزّ means to apply strong pressure, to persuade somebody to do something. The sense of this verse is that the Devils instigate the unbelievers to persist in their evil ways by presenting before their eyes the benefits and hiding from them the wickedness of their evil deeds.

Man wants to be able to do whatever he likes in this world, but at the same time he does not want to be made to suffer the consequences of his wrongdoings. Naturally, such leniency is not to be expected from God. Therefore, man courts such beings as are supposedly near and dear to God and who could plead his case to Him. But such a course of action, based as it is on false conjectures, will be of no avail to him or to anybody else. So much so that even those beings whom he had supposed to be partners of God and whom he ritually worshipped, will themselves disown him on Judgement Day. They will show him nothing but hatred.