Transliteration:( Qul ara'aytum maa tad'oona min doonil laahi aroonee maazaa khalaqoo minal ardi am lahum shirkun fis samaawaati eetoonee bi kitaabim min qabli haazaaa aw asaaratim min 'ilmin in kuntum saadiqeen )
8. This tells us that being worthy of worship He who is a Creator. The Polytheists of Arabia were not accepting these idols as creator, yet they believed in them as equal of Allah Almighty and worshipping them Therefore it became appropriate to ask this question of them.
9. This means there is a categorical proof of the Uniqueness of Allah Almighty and the refutation of polytheism in the Holy QURAN and all the previous heavenly Scriptures.
Therefore if you are on truth then produce any such heavenly book in which there is a proof of polytheism and the refutation of the Oneness of Allah Almighty.
10. The gist of teachings of the previous Prophets is that oh you polytheists, you neither have an intellectual proof nor any fictitional proof regarding polytheism.
Therefore you are liars. From th we learn that like the Holy QURAN, statements of the Prophets are obligatory to follow. If only the Book of Allah Almighty was obligatory to follow, then they would have been no requisitioned about the second knowledge.
The tafsir of Surah Ahqaf verse 4 by Ibn Kathir is unavailable here.
Please refer to Surah Ahqaf ayat 1 which provides the complete commentary from verse 1 through 6.
(46:4) Tell them, (O Prophet): “Did you consider those whom you call upon beside Allah? Show me, which part of the earth they created? Or do they have any share in creating the heavens? Bring to me any Scripture earlier than this one, or any vestige of knowledge (in support of your belief) if you are truthful.[4]
4. As the addresses are a polytheistic people, they are being told the reality of the irrational creed in which they persisted carelessly due to lack of the sense of responsibility. Along with acknowledging Allah as the Creator of the universe they had made many other beings their deities. They invoked them, regarded them as fulfillers of their needs and removers of hardships, prostrated themselves and made offerings before them, and thought they had the powers of making and unmaking of their destinies. About the same beings, they are being asked: On what basis have you made them your deities? Obviously, there can be only two bases for regarding someone as an associate in worship along with Allah: Either man himself should know through some means of knowledge that his deity too has a share in making the earth and heavens, or Allah Himself may have stated that so and so also is His associate in the functions of Godhead. Now, if a polytheist can neither make the claim that he possesses direct knowledge of his deity’s being an associate of God, nor he can show in a Book sent by God that God Himself has appointed somebody as His associate, his creed would inevitably be baseless.
In this verse, “a Book revealed before this” implies a Book sent by Allah before the Quran, and some remnant of knowledge, implies some part of the teachings of the Prophets and righteous men of the ancient times, which may have reached the later generations reliably. There is no tinge of shirk in whatever man has received through these two means. All the heavenly Books unanimously present the same Tauhid to which the Quran invites the people, and no existing remnant of the ancient lore bears evidence to this that some Prophet or saint or righteous man might have taught the people to serve and worship any other than God. Even if we do not take a Book to mean a divine Book and remnant of knowledge the knowledge bequeathed by the Prophets and righteous men, no authentic book or the research made by a scholar of religious or secular lore has pointed out that such and such a thing in the earth or the heavens has been created by such and such a saint or god, or a certain blessing of the blessings of life which man is benefiting from in the universe has been created by such and such a deity instead of God.
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