وَيَعْبُدُونَ مِن دُونِ ٱللَّهِ مَا لَا يَضُرُّهُمْ وَلَا يَنفَعُهُمْ وَيَقُولُونَ هَـٰٓؤُلَآءِ شُفَعَـٰٓؤُنَا عِندَ ٱللَّهِ ۚ قُلْ أَتُنَبِّـُٔونَ ٱللَّهَ بِمَا لَا يَعْلَمُ فِى ٱلسَّمَـٰوَٰتِ وَلَا فِى ٱلْأَرْضِ ۚ سُبْحَـٰنَهُۥ وَتَعَـٰلَىٰ عَمَّا يُشْرِكُونَ 18
Translations
And they worship other than Allāh that which neither harms them nor benefits them, and they say, "These are our intercessors with Allāh." Say, "Do you inform Allāh of something He does not know in the heavens or on the earth?" Exalted is He and high above what they associate with Him.
Transliteration
Wa ya'budūn min dūn Allāh mā lā yaḍurruhum wa lā yanfa'uhum wa yaqūlūn hā'ulā'i shufa'ā'unā 'inda Allāh. Qul atunabbiūn Allāh bimā lā ya'lam fi al-samāwāti wa lā fi al-arḍ. Subḥānahu wa ta'ālā 'ammā yushrikūn.
Tafsir (Explanation)
This ayah rejects the practice of polytheists who worship idols and false deities besides Allah, claiming they serve as intercessors with Him. The Qur'an emphasizes the futility of these idols—they can neither harm nor benefit the worshippers—and then poses a powerful rhetorical challenge: how dare they attribute to Allah knowledge He does not possess? Classical exegetes like Al-Qurtubi and Ibn Kathir highlight that this is a logical absurdity: the polytheists fabricate false claims about intercession without any divine authority, making God's transcendence (tanzīh) a central theme of this verse.
Revelation Context
Surah Yunus is a Meccan chapter revealed during a period of intense polytheistic resistance to the Prophet's message. This particular ayah addresses the Meccan practice of idol worship and the false belief that idols could intercede with Allah on their behalf. The broader context of Surah Yunus emphasizes the monotheistic message against the backdrop of widespread idolatry.
Related Hadiths
The Prophet (ﷺ) said: 'The most grievous sin is to associate partners with Allah' (Sahih Bukhari 4477). Additionally, the hadith in Sahih Muslim regarding the intercession (shafā'ah) clarifies that only Allah grants true intercession, not idols or false deities.
Themes
Key Lesson
Worshipping anything besides Allah is spiritually empty and logically indefensible; our devotion should be exclusively to Allah, whose transcendence and knowledge are absolute. We must examine our beliefs critically: do we attribute to other than Allah—whether idols, figures, or false concepts—the power to benefit or intercede for us, thereby diminishing our reliance on Allah alone?