Overview (Verses 56 - 58)

A Law Not to Be Violated
 
Say: I am forbidden to worship those beings whom you invoke instead of God. Say: I do not follow your whims, for then I would have gone astray, and would not be on the right path. Say: I take my stand on a clear evidence from my Lord, yet you deny Him. It is not in my power [to produce] that which you so hastily demand. Judgement rests with God alone. He declares the truth and He is the best of arbiters. Say: If that which you so hastily demand were in my power, the case between me and you would have been decided. But God knows best as to who are the wrongdoers. (Verses 56-58)

This passage is particularly inspiring. It seeks to influence the addressees by stating the true nature of Godhead, explaining its different aspects, using varying cadences and a most effective style. One particularly inspiring feature is the use of the address form, “Say... Say... Say...” making it profoundly clear that this is an address to God’s Messenger (peace be upon him). He is required to deliver his Lord’s message as it is revealed to him. We are told with absolute clarity that the Messenger does not have or follow anything other than this message and seeks none other than its guidance: “Say: ‘I am forbidden to worship those beings whom you invoke instead of God’. Say: ‘I do not follow your whims, for then I would have gone astray, and would not be on the right path.’” (Verse 56)
 
God commands His Messenger to declare to the unbelievers that his Lord forbids him to worship those beings on whom they call instead of God and whom they make partners with God. He is forbidden to follow their whims. The fact is that they invoke those beings, giving them a divine status, as a result of their whims and caprice. This cannot be the outcome of any certain knowledge or any truth. If he responded to their whims, he too would then go astray and find no guidance whatsoever. Their whims can only cause him and them to deviate from the path of the truth and to lose their way altogether.
 
God instructs his Messenger to put the issues so clearly to the unbelievers and to explain to them how his way and their way cannot meet. Indeed, this is not the first time God issues such an order to His Messenger in this sūrah. Earlier, He ordered him to say: “Will you in truth bear witness that there are other deities beside God? Say: ‘I bear no such witness’. Say:’ He is but one God. I disown all that you associate with Him.’” (Verse 19)
 
The unbelievers used to try to tempt God’s Messenger (peace be upon him) to endorse their beliefs in return for their endorsement of his faith. They suggested to him that he should bow to their deities and, likewise, they would prostrate themselves before his, as if this could ever happen, and as if idolatry and Islam, with its emphasis on submission to God alone, could exist side by side in the heart of any one person, or worship of God alone could join hands with the worship of other beings. Nothing of this could ever be imagined. God is the One who is least in need of any partners. He requires His servants to submit to Him alone. He makes it clear to them that He will never accept their submission if they allow any traces of polytheism to creep into it.
 
Let us now consider an important linguistic usage in this verse: “Say: ‘I am forbidden to worship those beings whom you invoke instead of God.’” (Verse 56) This statement makes it clear that the Prophet must tell the unbelievers that he is forbidden to worship any of their idols or any other beings they worship. This applies to whatever being is invoked besides God. However, the rules of Arabic grammar indicate that use of the relative pronoun ‘whom’ in this statement is significant. Normally, its usage is limited to beings with minds of their own. Had the prohibition only meant idols and similar inanimate objects, the relative pronoun `what’ would have been used instead. The reference here must, then, include some intelligent beings to justify the use of the relative pronoun ‘whom’. This interpretation is consistent with the practical facts and with general Islamic terminology in this respect.
 
In practice, the Arab idolaters did not only worship idols. They also associated jinn, angels and human beings as partners with God. The partnership they ascribed to human beings manifested itself only in giving those human beings the authority to legislate. They set for them their norms and traditions and arbitrated in their disputes, in accordance with the prevailing customs and what they thought fit. We need, then, to look at how this is described in Islamic terminology. Islam considers all this as a form of idolatry. When human beings are given the authority to regulate people’s affairs in accordance with their own legislation, they are actually considered equal to God. This is as strongly forbidden in Islam as any actual prostration before idols. Both actions are manifestations of polytheistic beliefs. Both ascribe divinity to beings other than God.
 
The Prophet is then ordered by God to declare to those idolaters who deny the absolute oneness of their Lord his own firm belief and unshakable conviction that God is the only Lord in the universe and that He sends down revelations to him: “Say: ‘I take my stand on a clear evidence from my Lord, yet you deny Him. It is not in my power [to produce] that which you so hastily demand. Judgement rests with God alone. He declares the truth and He is the best of arbiters.’” (Verse 57)
 
This is, indeed, what earlier prophets and messengers felt. They expressed it in similar terms. The Prophet Noah used practically the same wording: “Think, my people! If I take my stand on a clear evidence from my Lord and He has favoured me with grace from Himself, to which you have remained blind, can we force it upon you when you are averse to it?” (11: 28) Similarly did the Prophet Şāliĥ speak to his people, the Thamūd: “Think, my people! If take my stand on a clear evidence from my Lord and He has bestowed on me His grace, who will save me from God, should I disobey Him? You are, in such case, only augmenting my ruin.” (11: 63) Abraham said it somewhat differently: “His people argued with him. He said: ‘Do you argue with me about God, when it is He Who has given me guidance?” (Verse 80) The Prophet Jacob stated the same idea to his children: “When the bearer of good news arrived [with Joseph’s shirt], he laid it over his face; and he recovered his sight. He said: Did I not say to you that I know from God something that you do not know?” (12: 96)
 
This is, then, the nature of Godhead as it is fully understood by God’s most obedient servants. They feel its truth bringing them total reassurance and unshakeable faith. When the unbelievers in Arabia demanded miracles from the Prophet Muĥammad (peace be upon him), God commanded him to declare this truth as he felt it, putting it clearly in front of those unbelievers: “Say: ‘I take my stand on a clear evidence from my Lord, yet you deny Him.’” (Verse 57)
 
They also demanded that the Prophet accomplish for them some miracle or let God’s scourge loose on them so that they could believe that what he preached was revealed by God. He was ordered, in response, to declare to them the true nature of his message and what it meant to be God’s Messenger. He was commanded to make an absolutely clear distinction between this and the nature of Godhead. He had to declare that he had no control whatsoever over what they tried to hurry. It is controlled only by God. He himself was only a messenger, not a deity: “It is not in my power [to produce] that which you so hastily demand. Judgement rests with God alone. He declares the truth and He is the best of arbiters.” (Verse 57)
 
Hastening the punishment of the unbelievers when they continued to deny God even after miraculous proof had been given them is in effect a judgement put into effect. Hence, it belongs to God who tells the truth and who arbitrates between the one who advocates the truth and those who deny His message. No creature has been given any such authority to judge others.
 
The Prophet thus denies that he himself has any power or any say in what judgement God passes against His servants. The Prophet is no more than a human being who receives revelations which he conveys, discharging his duty as a warner. God alone passes judgement. That is the perfect distinction between the nature of God and His attributes on the one hand and the nature of His servants on the other.
 
The Prophet is then ordered to explain to them a particularly effective argument about how the whole affair rests with God and operates according to His will. Had the accomplishment of miracles, including the subsequent administration of punishment been within his power, then, as a human being, he could not have refused it as they were insisting so strongly on a miracle. Since such a decision belongs to God alone, He treats them with forbearance and withholds miracles so that they do not put themselves in a position whereby their own destruction becomes inevitable, as happened to earlier communities: “Say: ‘If that which you so hastily demand were in my power, the case between me and you would have been decided. But God knows best as to who are the wrongdoers.” (Verse 58) Human beings have a limited capacity for forbearance. It is only God, the Supreme, the Almighty who can show such forbearance to human beings when they persist with their disobedience and boastful rejections.
 
God certainly tells the truth. We see some people behaving in a way which totally exhausts our patience and makes us absolutely angry. Nevertheless, God forbears with them, lets them enjoy His provisions, feeds them and gives them abundance. In such a situation, one can only say: “My Lord, how forbearing You are!” This is, indeed, what Abū Bakr said when the unbelievers in Arabia beat him so badly that his nose could not be distinguished from his eye. God forbears with them when He knows them full well: “God knows best as to who are the wrongdoers”. When He gives them a respite, He certainly has a purpose behind His decision. He forbears with them when He is certainly able to respond to their suggestions and to let loose His scourge to destroy them.