(34–36) “Ask them, ‘Can any of your supposed partners originate creation and then bring it back?’ Say, ‘Allah originates creation and then brings it back. How can you then be turned away? * Ask them, ‘Can any of your supposed partners guide to the truth?’ Say, ‘Allah guides to the truth. Who, then, is more worthy of being followed: the One who guides to the truth, or one who cannot find guidance unless guided? What is wrong with you? How can you judge as you do? * Most of them follow nothing but conjecture, and conjecture is no substitute for the truth. Allah certainly knows all that they do.’”
Allah Most High says, making clear the helplessness of the polytheists’ gods and their lack of any quality that would warrant taking them as gods alongside Him: “Can any of your supposed partners originate creation”—that is, bring it into existence in the first place—“and then bring it back?” This is a rhetorical question conveying negation and compelling acknowledgement: none of them can originate creation and then bring it back. They are far too weak and helpless for that. “Say, ‘Allah originates creation and then brings it back,’” without any partner or helper assisting Him in this.
“How can you then be turned away?” That is, how can you be diverted and turned from worshipping the One who alone originates creation and brings it back, only to worship those who create nothing and are themselves created?
“Ask them, ‘Can any of your supposed partners guide to the truth?’—by explaining it and directing people to it, or by inspiring them and granting them success.
“Say, ‘Allah’” alone “guides to the truth” through proofs and clear evidence, through inspiration and the granting of success, and by helping people follow the straightest path.
“Or one who cannot find guidance”—that is, cannot himself be guided—“unless guided,” because of his ignorance and misguidance? Such are their supposed partners, which neither guide nor find guidance unless they are guided. “What is wrong with you? How can you judge as you do?” That is, what has led you to this false judgment that anyone may legitimately be worshipped alongside Allah, after proof and evidence have made it clear that none deserves worship except Allah alone?
Once it has become clear that the gods they worship alongside Allah possess neither intrinsic qualities nor active powers warranting their worship alongside Him, but are instead marked by deficiencies that invalidate their claim to divinity, why have they been made gods alongside Allah?
The answer is that Satan has made the foulest falsehood and the most grievous error appear attractive to man, until he comes to believe it, grows accustomed to it, and supposes it to be true, though it is utterly baseless.
Hence He says: “Those who invoke supposed partners besides Allah are not truly following partners.” That is, in reality they are not following partners of Allah, for Allah has no partner whatsoever, whether according to reason or revelation. They follow nothing but conjecture, and “conjecture is no substitute for the truth.” They called them gods and worshipped them alongside Allah, yet “These are nothing but names which you and your forefathers have made up, for which Allah has sent down no authority.”
“Allah certainly knows all that they do,” and He will requite them for it with severe punishment.