The Ineffectiveness of False Deities

God sometimes, in order to negate polytheism (shirk) and establish monotheism (tawḥīd), before establishing the final proof of monotheism, says that these deities of yours are ineffective; they are not capable of bringing benefit to themselves or repelling harm from themselves, let alone for you: “Say, ‘Do you worship besides God that which owns for you no harm and no benefit?’” And if God wills to destroy Jesus and his mother and all the people of the earth [together] and bring forth a new generation, no one can do anything about it: “Say, ‘Who then possesses [power to do] anything against God if He should will to destroy the Messiah, son of Mary, and his mother and everyone on the earth entirely?’”(117) So how do you consider someone to be God and worship him when he does not own his life and death and does not own any harm or benefit?

Sometimes at a higher level than this stage, He says that these deities of yours not only have no benefit or harm for you, they do not own benefit or harm for themselves either, but rather they are made and created by humans: “And they have taken besides Him gods which create nothing, while they are created, and possess not for themselves any harm or benefit and possess not [power to cause] death or life or resurrection.”(118) Abraham (a.s.) made a similar argument to his uncle Āzar, saying why do you worship an idol that is deaf and blind: “Why do you worship that which does not hear and does not see.”(119)

God tells the Noble Prophet to say to the people that nothing is possible for him either and he does not own any harm or benefit for himself: “Say, ‘I do not possess for myself any harm or benefit’”,(120) even though he is the first emanation (ṣādir-i awwal) or the first manifestation (ẓāhir-i awwal) and the absolute vicegerent (khalīfat al-muṭlaq) of the Truth and the channel of grace (majrā-yi fayḍ) and sustenance for everyone. And if Moses the Interlocutor (Mūsā al-Kalīm) turned a dry stick into the form of a serpent: “He said, ‘Throw it down, O Moses.’ So he threw it down, and behold, it was a serpent, moving swiftly”,(121) or Jesus made a bird from clay and breathed into it and it became a bird: “And [recall] when you created from clay [something] like the form of a bird with My permission, and you breathed into it, and it became a bird with My permission”,(122) both were by God’s permission (bi-idhn Allāh); neither Moses was a creator in of himself (khāliq dhātī) nor was Jesus.

Based on this, the pure monotheist considers the person appointed as the vicegerent of the One Dominant God to be a manifestation of the Truth (maẓhar al-ḥaqq) and loves him for that reason. God also performs all divine works through this channel of reflected grace; through this, both the concept of intercession (tawassul) finds its real meaning, as does pure monotheism (tawḥīd-i nāb).