The Quran

165

Preface

وَمِنَ النّاسِ مَن يَتَّخِذُ مِن دونِ اللَّهِ أَندادًا يُحِبّونَهُم كَحُبِّ اللَّهِ ۖ وَالَّذينَ آمَنوا أَشَدُّ حُبًّا لِلَّهِ ۗ وَلَو يَرَى الَّذينَ ظَلَموا إِذ يَرَونَ العَذابَ أَنَّ القُوَّةَ لِلَّهِ جَميعًا وَأَنَّ اللَّهَ شَديدُ العَذابِ

Yusuf Ali

Yet there are men who take (for worship) others besides God, as equal (with God.: They love them as they should love God. But those of Faith are overflowing in their love for God. If only the unrighteous could see, behold, they would see the penalty: that to God belongs all power, and God will strongly enforce the Punishment¹.

Everything around and within us points to unity of purpose and design ? points to God. Yet there are foolish persons (unrighteous = those who deliberately use the choice given them to go wrong). They think something else is equal to God. Perhaps they even do lip service to God, but their heart is in their fetish -unlike the heart of the righteous, who are wholly devoted and absorbed in the love of God. If only the unrighteous could see the consequences, they would see the terrible Penalty, and that all Power is in God’s hands, not in those of any one else. Who are these others who are used as fetishes by the misguided? They may be; (1) creatures of their own imagination, or of their faculties misused; the idea lying behind idols is akin to this, for no intelligent idol-worshipper owns to worshipping stocks and stones; or (2) good leaders whose names have been misused out of perversity to erect them to a position of equality with God; or (3) Powers of evil that deliberately mislead. When it comes to the inevitable consequences of blasphemy and the rejection of God, the eyes of all are opened and these false and artificial relations dissolve. The idea which was created into a fetish disowns its follower, i.e. is seen to have no reasonable basis in the life of the follower, and the follower is forced to renounce it as false. The good leaders whose names were misused would of course disown the misuse of their names, and the evil ones would take an unholy delight in exposing the facts. The Reality is now irresistible, but alas! at what cost? (Cf. 3:83).