“O mankind, a parable has been set forth, so listen to it. Surely those whom you invoke besides Allah will never create even a fly, even if they all gathered together to do so. And if a fly were to snatch something from them, they could not recover it from it. Feeble are the seeker and the sought. They have not appraised Allah with His true appraisal. Surely Allah is All-Strong, Almighty. Allah chooses messengers from among the angels and from among mankind. Surely Allah is All-Hearing, All-Seeing.” (73–75)

The meaning of “a parable has been set forth” is: it has been established, as in the saying, “The ruler imposed military conscription upon the people and imposed the poll-tax upon the protected non-Muslim subjects”—that is, he made this binding upon them. The meaning of the verse is that a likeness has been ascribed to Me, and idols have been compared to Me; that is, the polytheists made idols partners with Me and worshipped them. The meaning of “so listen to it” is: listen to their condition and description. He then explained this, saying:

“Surely those whom you invoke besides Allah”—meaning the idols. Yaqub recited it in the third person, while the rest recited it in the second person—“will never create even a fly”: a single fly, despite its smallness and insignificance, for they are incapable of doing so. The word dhubab means “fly”; its small-number plural is adhibbah, and its large-number plural is dhibban, just as ghurab, “raven,” has the plurals aghribah and ghirban. “Even if they all gathered together to do so”—that is, to create it. “And if a fly were to snatch something from them, they could not recover it from it.”

Ibn Abbas said: “They used to coat the idols with saffron, and once it dried, a fly would come and take some of it away.”

Al-Suddi said: “They used to place food before the idols, and flies would land on it and eat from it.”

Ibn Zayd said: “They used to adorn the idols with rubies, pearls, and various kinds of precious stones, and perfume them with different types of fragrance. At times, one of these ornaments would fall from them, and a bird or a fly would take it; yet the gods would be unable to retrieve it. This is the meaning of His saying, ‘And if a fly were to snatch something from them’: if a fly takes something from the idols that is upon them, they are unable to recover it from the fly. ‘Feeble are the seeker and the sought.’”

Ibn Abbas said: “The seeker is the fly, which seeks to take perfume from the idol; and the sought is the idol, from which the fly seeks to take it.” It was also said that the opposite is meant: the seeker is the idol, and the sought is the fly. Al-Dahhak said: “The seeker is the worshipper, and the sought is the one worshipped.”

“They have not appraised Allah with His true appraisal”: they have not magnified Him as He deserves to be magnified, nor known Him as He deserves to be known, nor described Him as He deserves to be described, when they associate with Him that which cannot ward off a fly or take retribution from it. “Surely Allah is All-Strong, Almighty.”

“Allah chooses”—that is, He selects—“messengers from among the angels,” namely Gabriel, Michael, Israfil, Azrael, and others; “and from among mankind”: that is, He chooses messengers from among mankind, such as Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—