These people supposed that when Abraham, peace be upon him, said:

“This is my Lord.” [Al-Anʿām: 77]

he meant: “This is the Creator of the heavens and the earth, eternal and without beginning,” and that he inferred from its motion that it had a beginning.

This is mistaken in several respects:

[The first point]

The first is that Abraham’s statement, “This is my Lord”—whether he said it hypothetically to rebuke his people, by way of reasoning and gradual progression, or otherwise—did not mean: “This is the Lord of all worlds, eternal and without beginning, whose existence is necessary in and of Himself.” Nor did his people claim that the stars, the moon, or the sun were the eternal Lord of all worlds, whose existence is necessary in and of Himself. No adherent of any of the well-known doctrines that people have recorded has said this: neither the adherents of theological negation and polytheism who worship the sun, the moon, and the stars, nor the adherents of other doctrines.

Rather, Abraham’s people—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—took these celestial bodies as lords whom they invoked and sought to draw near to by erecting buildings dedicated to them, calling others to their worship, prostrating, making sacrificial offerings, and other such practices. This is the religion of the polytheists whose practices al-Rāzī followed in composing his book, which he entitled The Hidden Secret Concerning the Invocation of the Planets and Stars, Magic, Talismans, and Incantations.