74مِن دونِ اللَّهِ ۖ قالوا ضَلّوا عَنّا بَل لَم نَكُن نَدعو مِن قَبلُ شَيئًا ۚ كَذٰلِكَ يُضِلُّ اللَّهُ الكافِرينَMuhammad Asadside by side with God?" They will answer: "They have forsaken us - or, rather, what we were wont to invoke aforetime did not exist at all!"1 [And they will be told:] "It is thus that God lets the deniers of the truth go astray:2Lit., "we have not been invoking aforetime any [real] thing": thus realizing, belatedly, the intrinsic nothingness of all those imaginary powers and values - including the belief in man's alleged self-sufficiency and greatness - to which they paid homage in life.I.e., by allowing them to pursue illusions and foolish fancies in consequence of their unwillingness to acknowledge the self-evident truth of God's existence and uniqueness and of man's utter dependence on Him. For a discussion of the problem of God's "letting" a sinner go astray, see note 4 on 14:4.