5أَجَعَلَ الآلِهَةَ إِلٰهًا واحِدًا ۖ إِنَّ هٰذا لَشَيءٌ عُجابٌMuhammad AsadDoes he claimthat all the deities are [but] one God? Verily, a most strange thing is this!"1Divorced from its purely historical background, this criticism acquires a timeless significance, and may be thus paraphrased: "Does he claim that all creative powers and qualities are inherent exclusively in what he conceives as 'one God'?" - a paraphrase which illustrates the tendency of many people to attribute a decisive influence on human life - and, hence, a quasi-divine status - to a variety of fortuitous phenomena or circumstances (like wealth, "luck", social position, etc.) rather than to acknowledge the overwhelming evidence, in all observable nature, of God's unique existence.