12يَدعو مِن دونِ اللَّهِ ما لا يَضُرُّهُ وَما لا يَنفَعُهُ ۚ ذٰلِكَ هُوَ الضَّلالُ البَعيدُMuhammad Asad[By behaving thus,] he invokes, instead of God, something that can neither harm nor benefit him:1 [and] this is indeed the utmost one can go astray.2By failing to commit himself unreservedly to the faith which he professes, man is often inclined to attribute to all manner of extraneous forces, be they real or imaginary, a decisive "influence" on his own destiny, and thus invests them, as it were, with divine qualities.Lit., "this, this (dhalika huwa) is the straying far-away". For an explanation of my paraphrase, see note 25 on the last sentence of 14:18.