The Quran

137

وَكَذٰلِكَ زَيَّنَ لِكَثيرٍ مِنَ المُشرِكينَ قَتلَ أَولادِهِم شُرَكاؤُهُم لِيُردوهُم وَلِيَلبِسوا عَلَيهِم دينَهُم ۖ وَلَو شاءَ اللَّهُ ما فَعَلوهُ ۖ فَذَرهُم وَما يَفتَرونَ

Muhammad Asad

And, likewise, their belief in beings or powers that are supposed to have a share in God's divinity makes¹ [even] the slaying of their children seem goodly to many of those who ascribe divinity to aught beside God, thus bringing them to ruin and confusing them in their faith."² Yet, unless God had so willed, they would not be doing all this:³ stand, therefore, aloof from them and all their false imagery!

Lit., "their [God-]partners make". As pointed out by Razi, some early commentators were of the opinion that the expression shuraka'uhum (lit., "their associates") denotes here the "evil beings" or "forces" (shayatin) from among men and jinn referred to in verses 112, 121, 128 and 130 of this surah. It seems to me, however, that what is meant here - as in the preceding verse - is the belief in the existence of anything that could be "associated" with God; hence my rendering of the above phrase as "their belief in beings or powers that are supposed...", etc.
This is a reference to the custom prevalent among the pre-Islamic Arabs of burying alive some of their unwanted children, mainly girls, and also to the occasional offering of a boy-child in sacrifice to one or another of their idols (Zamakhshari). Apart from this historical reference, the above Qur'an-verse seems to point out, by implication, the psychological fact that an attribution of divinity to anyone or anything but God brings with it an ever-growing dependence on all kinds of imaginary powers which must be "propitiated" by formal and often absurd and cruel rites: and this, in turn, leads to the loss of all spiritual freedom and to moral self-destruction.
I.e., He allows them to behave as they do because He wants them to make use of their reason and of the free will with which He has endowed man.