Surah al-A`raf (The Elevated Places) 7 : 191

Explanatory Note

It is only the Creator who deserves to be worshipped. The partners they associate with God can create nothing. Indeed, they themselves are created. How can they be raised to the status of deities? How come they assign to those deities a portion of themselves and their children? Power and authority are amongst the most essential attributes of Godhead. The One who can support His servants and protect them with His power is the One who deserves to be worshipped. All their alleged deities are powerless and without authority. How can they give them support when they cannot even help themselves? How are they to be treated as partners with God?

Hence, humanity today stands in the same old position and needs to be addressed by the Qur’ān anew. It needs someone to rescue it from its new jāhiliyyah, and present Islam to it; someone to take it from darkness into light and to save its hearts and minds from the new paganism and idolatry. This religion saved it the first time and it can certainly save it from the new folly into which it has sunk.

The way this Qur’ānic verse is phrased suggests that it also serves as a strong reproach to them for having adopted human deities.