(73–74) “O mankind, a parable is set forth, so listen to it. Those whom you invoke besides Allah can never create even a fly, though they were all to join together to do so. If the fly were to snatch anything away from them, they could not retrieve it from it. Weak are the seeker and the sought! They have not esteemed Allah as He deserves. Indeed, Allah is All-Strong, Almighty.”
This is a parable Allah sets forth to show the vileness of idol worship, the deficient understanding of those who worship idols, and the weakness of all concerned. He says: “O mankind”—this addresses both believers and disbelievers. The believers thereby increase in knowledge and insight, while the proof is established against the disbelievers. “A parable is set forth, so listen to it”; that is, lend it your ears, understand what it contains, and do not meet it with heedless hearts and ears that turn away. Rather, give it your hearts and ears. The parable is this: “Those whom you invoke besides Allah”—this includes everything invoked besides Allah—“can never create even a fly,” which is among the most insignificant and contemptible of creatures. They are incapable of creating even this feeble creature, let alone anything greater, “though they were all to join together to do so.” More striking still, “if the fly were to snatch anything away from them, they could not retrieve it from it.” This represents the utmost degree of helplessness. “Weak are the seeker”—the one worshipped besides Allah—“and the sought”—the fly. Both are weak, and weaker still is the one who clings to this feeble being and assigns it the station of the Lord of the worlds.
Such a person has not esteemed “Allah as He deserves,” for he has equated one who is needy and helpless in every respect with the One who is Self-Sufficient and powerful in every respect. He has equated one who controls neither benefit nor harm, neither death nor life nor resurrection, for himself or anyone else, with the One who bestows benefit and harm, who gives and withholds, who possesses all sovereignty and exercises every manner of control over it.
“Indeed, Allah is All-Strong, Almighty”; that is, perfect in strength and perfect in might. Among the manifestations of His perfect strength and might is that the forelocks of all creatures are in His Hands, and no moving thing moves and no still thing remains still except by His will and volition. Whatever Allah wills comes to pass, and whatever He does not will does not come to pass. Among the manifestations of His perfect strength is that He keeps the heavens and the earth from passing away. Another is that He will resurrect all creatures, from the first to the last, with a single Cry. Another is that He destroyed tyrants and defiant nations by a trifling thing—a mere stroke of His punishment.