He said, “So did Quraysh during the Age of Ignorance know Allah?”

I replied, “No.”

He said, “Yet Allah, Exalted is He, has related about them that they said, ‘We only worship them so that they may bring us nearer to Allah’ (al-Zumar 39:3).”

I answered, “They said that after they had associated others with Him; the only one who truly knows Allah is the one who affirms that He has no partner whatsoever.”

And the Exalted also says, “Say, O disbelievers, I do not worship what you worship” (al-Kāfirūn 109:1–2). Had they been worshipping Him, He would not have said, ‘I do not worship what you worship.’

He went on, and I said, “The idol-worshipping polytheists to whom the Prophet ﷺ sent ʿAlī to recite Sūrah Barāʾah to them (1).”

He asked, “And what are idols?”

I replied, “Stones.”

He said, “Can stones be worshipped?”

I said, “Yes. al-ʿUzzā was worshipped, though it was only a tree, and al-Shiʿrā was worshipped, and it is a star.”

He said, “Yet Allah says, ‘Is one who cannot guide unless he himself is guided…?’ (2) (Yūnus 10:35). How can you claim they are stones? Stones do not accept guidance when it is offered, for they possess no intellect.”

I said, “Allah has told us that skins will speak, even though they have no intellect.”

He said, “He attributed speech to them only figuratively.”

I replied, “The Revealer of the Quran rejects that. He says, ‘Today We will seal their mouths, and their hands will speak to Us’ (Yā Sīn 36:65) … until His words, ‘They will say, “Allah, who has made everything speak, has made us speak”’ (Fussilat 41:21). So what is the difference…"