It was also said that “their shadows” means their persons themselves; “in the mornings and afternoons” means early mornings and evenings. It was also said that the prostration of a shadow is its being made subject to that for which it was intended.

“Say, ‘Who is the Lord of the heavens and the earth?’ Say, ‘Allah.’ Say, ‘Have you then taken, apart from Him, protectors who possess no power even to benefit or harm themselves?’ Say, ‘Are the blind and the seeing alike? Or are darknesses and light alike? Or have they assigned to Allah partners who created as He creates, so that creation has become indistinguishable to them?’ Say, ‘Allah is the Creator of all things, and He is the One, the Prevailing Subduer.’” (16)

His saying, Most High, “Say, ‘Who is the Lord of the heavens and the earth?’” means: their Creator and Governor. “They will say, ‘Allah’” (1), for they acknowledge that Allah is their Creator and the Creator of the heavens and the earth. Once they have answered you, then say yourself as well, O Muhammad: “Allah.” It is related that, when he said this to the polytheists, they turned the question back to him and said, “You answer.” So Allah, Most High, commanded him to say: “Say, ‘Allah.’”

Then Allah said to them, as an argument binding upon them: “Say, ‘Have you then taken, apart from Him, protectors?’” Its meaning is: despite your acknowledgment that Allah is the Creator of the heavens and the earth, you have taken protectors besides Him and worshipped them apart from Allah—meaning the idols—though “they possess no power even to benefit or harm themselves.” How, then, could they possess any power for you?

Then He set forth a parable for them, saying: “Say, ‘Are the blind and the seeing alike?’” Likewise, the disbeliever and the believer are not alike. “Or are darknesses and light alike?” Hamzah, al-Kisa'i, and Abu Bakr recited yastawī (“are alike”) with the masculine prefix yā’, while the others recited it with the feminine prefix tā’, because nothing separates the feminine noun from its verb. “Darknesses and light”: just as darknesses and light are not alike, disbelief and faith are not alike.

“Or have they assigned”—that is, they have assigned—“to Allah partners who created as He creates, so that creation has become indistinguishable to them?” That is, what their alleged deities created became confused with what Allah, Most High, created, so that they did not know what was Allah’s creation and what was created by their gods.

“Say, ‘Allah is the Creator of all things, and He is the One, the Prevailing Subduer.’” Then Allah, Most High, set forth two parables for truth and falsehood, and He, Most High, said: