⦗61–63⦘ “If you ask them, ‘Who created the heavens and the earth and subjected the sun and the moon?’ they will surely say, ‘Allah.’ How, then, are they turned away? Allah grants abundant provision to whomever He wills among His servants and restricts it for him. Indeed, Allah has full knowledge of all things. And if you ask them, ‘Who sends down water from the sky and thereby revives the earth after its death?’ they will surely say, ‘Allah.’ Say, ‘All praise belongs to Allah!’ Yet most of them do not understand.”

This is an argument against the polytheists who deny Allah’s exclusive divinity and His sole right to worship, compelling them by what they themselves affirm of His sole lordship. If you were to ask them who created the heavens and the earth, who sent down water from the sky and thereby revived the earth after its death, and in whose hand lies the governance of all things, “they will surely say, ‘Allah’” alone. They would also acknowledge that the idols and all those whom they worship alongside Allah are incapable of doing any of this.

Marvel, then, at their falsehood and lies, and at how they turn instead to beings whose impotence they themselves acknowledge and which are unfit to govern anything at all. Declare them devoid of reason—foolish and feeble in understanding. Can you find anyone of weaker reason and poorer insight than one who approaches a stone, a grave, or the like, knowing that it can neither benefit nor harm, create nor provide, yet directs to it the sincerest devotion and purest worship, associating it with the Lord—the Creator and Provider, who brings benefit and harm? Say: Praise be to Allah, who has distinguished guidance from misguidance and made clear the falsity of the polytheists’ way, so that those granted success may beware of it.

And say: Praise be to Allah, who created the upper and lower worlds, governs them, and provides for them. He grants abundant provision to whomever He wills and restricts it for whomever He wills, out of His wisdom and His knowledge of what is best and fitting for His servants.