The Quran

الَّذي جَعَلَ لَكُمُ الأَرضَ فِراشًا وَالسَّماءَ بِناءً وَأَنزَلَ مِنَ السَّماءِ ماءً فَأَخرَجَ بِهِ مِنَ الثَّمَراتِ رِزقًا لَكُم ۖ فَلا تَجعَلوا لِلَّهِ أَندادًا وَأَنتُم تَعلَمونَ

Muhammad Asad

who has made the earth a resting-place for you and the sky a canopy, and has sent down water from the sky and thereby brought forth fruits for your sustenance: do not, then, claim that there is any power that could rival God,¹ when you know [that He is One].

Lit., "do not give God any compeers" (andad, pl. of nidd ). There is full agreement among all commentators that this term implies any object of adoration to which some or all of God's qualities are ascribed, whether it be conceived as a deity "in its own right" or a saint supposedly possessing certain divine or semi-divine powers. This meaning can be brought out only by a free rendering of the above phrase.