—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—to ‘Adī ibn Hātim:

“If other dogs mingle with your dog, do not eat, for you mentioned Allah’s name only over your dog, not over any other.”

As for His words, exalted is He:

“You worship nothing besides Him but names that you and your forefathers have given,”

the meaning is not, as they have claimed, “You worship the idols bearing those names,” for this is something they themselves acknowledge. Rather, the Lord, exalted is He, denied what they believed and affirmed its opposite. The meaning is that they called these idols gods and believed that they possessed divinity, although they possess no divinity whatsoever. Thus, when they worshipped them, believing them to be divine and calling them gods, they worshipped nothing but names they themselves had invented, for which Allah had sent down no authority. For Allah neither commanded that these things be worshipped nor made them gods, as He said:

“Ask those of Our messengers whom We sent before you: Did We appoint any gods besides the Most Merciful to be worshipped?”

Their worship, then, is directed toward the notion of divinity that they conceived within themselves and expressed with their tongues. This is something that exists in their minds and on their tongues but has no reality outside them. Thus, they worshipped nothing but these names, which they conceived in their minds and whose meanings they expressed with their tongues. They intended to worship the idol only because they regarded it as a god; yet its divinity exists within their own minds, not in external reality. In truth, therefore, they worshipped nothing but that false imagining to which they had given expression.

For this reason, He said in another verse:

“They have assigned partners to Allah. Say: ‘Name them! Or are you informing Him of something He does not know on earth, or merely speaking empty words?’”

He is saying: Give them the names they deserve: