⦗62⦘ “Or who is it that responds to the distressed when he calls upon Him, removes affliction, and makes you successors upon the earth? Is there any deity alongside Allah? Little do you take heed.”

That is: Who but Allah alone responds to the distressed person, whom hardships have troubled, whose objective has become difficult to attain, and who is desperate to be delivered from his plight? Who but Allah alone removes affliction—that is, suffering, evil, and calamity? And who makes you successors upon the earth, gives you dominion over it, supplies you with provision, and bestows His blessings upon you, so that you succeed those who came before you, just as He will cause you to die and bring another people after you? Is there any deity alongside Allah that performs these deeds?

By your own admission, O polytheists, no one does any of this alongside Allah. Thus, whenever adversity touched them, they called upon Allah with sincere devotion to Him, knowing that He alone had the power to repel and remove it. “Little do you take heed.” That is, how little you remember and reflect upon the matters which, if you remembered them, would cause you to take heed and return to guidance. Yet heedlessness and aversion have wholly overtaken you, and so you have neither desisted nor found guidance.