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Sura 16
Aya 51
51
۞ وَقالَ اللَّهُ لا تَتَّخِذوا إِلٰهَينِ اثنَينِ ۖ إِنَّما هُوَ إِلٰهٌ واحِدٌ ۖ فَإِيّايَ فَارهَبونِ

Muhammad Asad

And God has said: "Do not take to worshipping two [or more] deities.1 He is the One and Only God: hence, of Me, of Me alone stand in awe!"2
  • The double dual in ilahayn ithnayn ("two deities") serves to emphasize the prohibition of worshipping "more than one deity"- i.e., anything but the One God.
  • This is a striking example of the fluctuation to which personal pronouns are subjected in the Qur'an whenever they refer to God. As already pointed out in my Foreword, note 2. as well as in other places, such abrupt changes of pronoun ("He", "I", "We", "Us", "Me", etc.) indicate that God is limitless and, therefore, beyond the range of definition implied in the use of "personal" pronouns.