35وَإِذ قالَ إِبراهيمُ رَبِّ اجعَل هٰذَا البَلَدَ آمِنًا وَاجنُبني وَبَنِيَّ أَن نَعبُدَ الأَصنامَMuhammad AsadAND [remember the time] when Abraham spoke [thus]:1 "O my Sustainer! Make this land secure,2 and preserve me and my children from ever worshipping idols3-The whole of this passage (verses 35-41)- from which the title of this surah is derived represents a parenthetic reminder, in the form of Abraham's prayer, of the only way to righteousness, in the deepest sense of the word, open to man: namely, a recognition of God's existence, oneness and uniqueness and, hence, a rejection of all belief in "other powers" supposedly co-existent with Him (cf. verse 30 above). Inasmuch as this prayer implies a realization of, and gratitude for, God's infinite bounty, it connects directly with the preceding verse 34 and the subsequent verse 42.I.e., the land in which the Kabah is situated (see surah 2, note 102) and, more specifically, Mecca.The term "idols" (asnam, sing. sanam) does not apply exclusively to actual, concrete representations of false "deities": for shirk - that is, an attribution of divine powers or qualities to anyone or anything beside God - may consist also, as Razi points out, in a worshipful devotion to all manner of "causative agencies and outward means to an end" - an obvious allusion to wealth, power, luck, people's favour or disfavour, and so forth - "whereas genuine faith in the oneness and uniqueness of God (at-tawhid al-maha) consists in divesting oneself of all inner attachment to [such] causative agencies and in being convinced that there exists no real directing power apart from God".