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158
وَجَعَلوا بَينَهُ وَبَينَ الجِنَّةِ نَسَبًا ۚ وَلَقَد عَلِمَتِ الجِنَّةُ إِنَّهُم لَمُحضَرونَ

Muhammad Asad

And some people1 have invented a kinship between Him and all manner of invisible forces2 - although [even] these invisible forces know well that, verily, they [who thus blaspheme against God] shall indeed be arraigned [before Him on Judgment Day:3 for]
  • Lit., "they".
  • See Appendix III. Whereas most of the classical commentators are of the opinion that the term al-jinnah denotes here the angels, since they - like all beings of this category - are imperceptible to man's senses, I believe that the above verse refers to those intangible forces of nature which elude all direct observation and manifest themselves only in their effects: hence their designation, in this context, by the plural noun al-jinnah, which primarily denotes "that which is concealed from [man's] senses". Inasmuch as people who refuse to believe in God often tend to regard those elemental forces as mysteriously endowed with a purposeful creative power (cf. Bergson's concept of the elan vital), the Qur'an states that their votaries invent a "kinship" between them and God, i.e., attribute to them qualities and powers similar to His.
  • For this metaphorical attribution of "knowledge" to the elemental forces of nature, see verses 164-166 and the corresponding note 71.