(28–29) “He sets forth for you a parable from your own lives: Do any of those whom your right hands possess share as partners in what We have provided you, so that you and they are equal in it, fearing them as you fear one another? Thus do We explain the signs in detail for people who understand. * Rather, those who have done wrong follow their desires without knowledge. Who, then, can guide one whom Allah has led astray? They will have no helpers.”
This is a parable that Allah Most High sets forth to demonstrate the ugliness and reprehensibility of associating partners with Him. It is drawn from your own lives and requires no journeying afar or putting camels to the road.
“Do any of those whom your right hands possess share as partners in what We have provided you?” That is, do any of your male or female slaves share in your provision, such that you regard yourselves and them as entirely equal in it?
“Fearing them as you fear one another?” That is, as you would fear free persons who are genuinely your partners—fearing that they might demand a division and claim each item exclusively for themselves?
That is not the case. None of those whom your right hands possess is your partner in what Allah Most High has provided you.
Moreover, you did not create them or provide for them, and they, like you, are themselves owned. How, then, can you be content to assign to Allah a partner from among His creation, place it on His level, and make it His equal in worship, when you are unwilling to regard those whom you own as equal to yourselves?
This is among the most astonishing things and among the clearest proofs of the [foolishness] (1) of anyone who takes a partner alongside Allah. It also proves that the partner he has taken is false and destined to vanish: it is not equal to Allah and deserves no share of worship whatsoever.
“Thus do We explain the signs in detail” by elucidating them through parables, “for people who understand”—those who grasp and recognize realities. As for one who does not understand, even if the signs were explained to him in detail and the clear proofs made plain, he would possess neither reason with which to perceive what had been made clear nor understanding with which to comprehend what had been elucidated. People of reason and understanding are therefore those to whom the discourse is directed and the address given.
Once this parable establishes that whoever takes a partner besides Allah, worships it, and relies upon it in his affairs has no truth whatsoever on his side, what could induce him to embark upon something false when its falsity has been made clear to him and the proof of that has become manifest? [Indeed] (2), what induced them to do so was their following of desire. For this reason, He said: “Rather, those who have done wrong follow their desires without knowledge.” Their deficient souls inclined toward it, and their deficiency was exposed by the very object to which their desire attached: a matter whose corruption reason decisively affirms and which innate human natures reject. No knowledge directed them toward it, nor did any proof lead them to it.
“Who, then, can guide one whom Allah has led astray?” That is, do not be surprised that they are not guided, for Allah Most High led them astray because of their wrongdoing. There is no path to guiding one whom Allah has led astray, for no one can oppose Allah or contend with Him in His dominion.