⦗63–64⦘ “Say, ‘Who rescues you from the darknesses of land and sea when you call upon Him humbly and secretly, saying, “If He rescues us from this, we will surely be among the grateful”?’ Say, ‘Allah rescues you from it and from every distress, yet you still associate partners with Him.’”

That is: Say to those who associate partners with Allah and invoke other gods alongside Him, using their acknowledgment that He alone is Lord as a binding argument against their denial that He alone deserves worship: “Who rescues you from the darknesses of land and sea?”—that is, from their hardships and dangers—when every means of escape is unavailable or difficult to find? You then call upon your Lord in humble supplication, with a submissive heart and a tongue that ceaselessly voices its need in prayer. In that state you say: “If He rescues us from this”—from the hardship into which we have fallen—“we will surely be among the grateful” to Allah: those who acknowledge His blessing, use it in obedience to their Lord, and safeguard it from being used in disobedience to Him.

“Say, ‘Allah rescues you from it and from every distress’”—that is, from this particular hardship and from all distress in general. “Yet you still associate partners with Him”: you do not fulfill the pledge you made to Allah, and you forget His blessings upon you. What proof, then, could be clearer than this of the falsity of associating partners with Him and the truth of worshipping Him alone?