And His saying: “Worship Allah and associate nothing with Him …” (Q 4:36).

La tushrikū: abstain from shirk, which is to equate anyone or anything with Allah in what is uniquely His.

Shay’an: an indefinite noun occurring in the context of a prohibition, so it covers shirk in its entirety, both major and minor.

Overall meaning of the verse: Allah, exalted is He, commands His servants to worship Him alone with no partner and forbids them from shirk. He does not restrict the command to any one act of worship—whether supplication, prayer, or anything else—so the order extends to every form of worship. Likewise, He does not single out any one kind of shirk, so the prohibition embraces every type of shirk.

Relevance of the verse to this chapter: it opens with the command to affirm tawḥīd and the prohibition of shirk, thereby defining tawḥīd as worshipping Allah alone and abandoning shirk.

Lessons derived from the verse:
1- The obligation to single out Allah for all worship, for Allah commanded it first; it is therefore the most emphatic duty.
2- The prohibition of shirk, for Allah forbade it; it is consequently the gravest of sins.
3- Avoiding shirk is a condition for the validity of worship, because Allah linked the command to worship with the prohibition of shirk.
4- Shirk is forbidden in every degree, great or small, major or minor, since the word shay’an is indefinite in the context of a prohibition and thus includes it all.
5- It is impermissible to associate anyone with Allah in His worship—neither angel nor prophet, neither righteous saint nor idol—because the term “anything” is all-inclusive.