(14) “To Him alone belongs the true invocation. Those whom they invoke besides Him cannot respond to them in any way. They are merely like one who stretches out his hands toward water so that it might reach his mouth, though it will never reach it. The invocation of the disbelievers is utterly futile.”

That is, the true invocation belongs to Allah alone: worshipping Him without any partner and sincerely directing to Him both the invocation of worship and the supplication of request. In other words, He alone is worthy of all invocation, fear, hope, love, longing, awe, and repentance, for His divinity is true, whereas the divinity of all others is false. “Those whom they invoke besides Him” are the idols and rivals they have made partners with Allah.

“They cannot respond to them”—that is, to those who invoke and worship them—in anything whatsoever, whether little or great, concerning either this world or the Hereafter. They are merely “like one who stretches out his hands toward water” that his hands cannot reach because it is too far away, “so that it might reach his mouth.” He is thirsty, and in his intense thirst he reaches out his hand and stretches it toward water that remains beyond his reach, but it never reaches him.

The same is true of the disbelievers who invoke other gods alongside Allah: they cannot respond to them in any way or benefit them at the very times when they need them most. This is because they are needy, just as those who invoke them are needy. They do not possess even an atom’s weight in the heavens or on earth, have no share in either, and none of them is a helper to Him.

“The invocation of the disbelievers is utterly futile,” because those whom they invoke besides Allah are false. Their worship and invocation are therefore invalid, for a means becomes invalid when its intended end is invalid. Since Allah Most High is the true and manifest Sovereign, worshipping Him is true and brings lasting benefit to the worshipper in this world and the Hereafter.

Comparing the disbelievers’ invocation of others besides Allah to someone stretching out his hands toward water so that it might reach his mouth is one of the finest parables, for it compares it to something impossible. Just as the latter is impossible, so too is the former. Making something contingent upon an impossibility is among the most emphatic ways of denying it, as Allah Most High says: “Indeed, those who deny Our signs and arrogantly reject them—the gates of heaven will not be opened for them, nor will they enter Paradise until a camel passes through the eye of a needle.”