We sent to every nation a messenger, saying, ‘Worship Allah and shun false deities.’” [al-Nahl 36]

If Allah Most High sent to every nation a messenger calling them to worship Allah alone, without partner, and to shun false deities, and Noah was the first whom Allah Most High sent to the people of the earth, then it follows that there were no polytheists before the people of Noah, as Ibn ‘Abbās said. If that is so, and those people followed Islam, while their doctrine was the very doctrine he called that of those who liken Allah to His creation, then this account necessarily establishes that this is the doctrine of the prophets, the messengers, and the Muslims of every nation.

The fourth point is that, according to this account, they devoted themselves to worshipping these idols in the belief that they were worshipping God and the angels. In His Book, Allah Most High has related the statements of the polytheists who set up another god alongside Him. He did not mention that they believed they were worshipping Allah when they worshipped idols. Rather, He mentioned that they took these idols as intercessors and that they said, “We worship them only so that they may bring us nearer to Allah.” Yet among these Jahmī proponents of union are those who say that the worshippers of idols worshipped none but Allah Most High