The Holy Quran with Five Volume Commentary (Vol 3) — Page 28
CH. 10 YŪNUS PT. 11 وَيَعْبُدُونَ مِنْ دُونِ اللَّهِ مَا لَا يَضُرُّهُمْ And they worship, instead. 19 وَلَا يَنْفَعُهُمْ وَ يَقُولُونَ هَؤُلَاءِ ;harms them nor profits them شُفَعَاؤُنَا عِنْدَ اللَّهِ قُلْ اَتُنَبِّونَ اللَّهَ بِمَا لَا يَعْلَمُ فِي السَّمَوتِ وَلَا فِي الْاَرْضِ سُبْحَنَهُ وَتَعَلَى عَمَّا يُشْرِكُوْنَ. of Allah, that which neither and they say, 'These are our intercessors with Allah. ' Say, bɩ b Would you inform Allah of something He knows not in the heavens or in the earth?' Holy is He, and high exalted above all that which they associate with Him. 1294 "16:74; 22:72; 29:18. 49:17. eternal truths. The first of these is that both those who fabricate lies against God and those who reject and oppose His Messengers are highly unjust and can never escape God's punishment. The second is that impostors and false prophets cannot succeed in fulfilling the object of their mission. It is indeed possible that a false prophet may temporarily succeed in securing a number of followers or in amassing wealth. But even in this case he will not be regarded as having succeeded in fulfilling his mission, because the amassing of wealth or the securing of a number of followers has never been the mission of a Prophet of God. The true mission of a Divine Messenger is either to introduce and establish a new Law or to strengthen the old one, and unless he succeeds in achieving this object, he cannot be said to have been successful in his mission. This is a criterion the truth of which cannot legitimately be disputed or denied. The apparent failure of a true Prophet like John the Baptist or the apparent success of a claimant like Bahā'ullāh can be fully explained with the help of this touchstone. John came with the mission of announcing the coming of the Messiah, which was in the nature of strengthening the old Law, and he was successful in that mission. On the other hand, Bahā'ullāh, even if he be taken to have come only as a Divine Messenger and not as God's incarnation as he declared himself to be, claimed to have brought a new law that was to replace the Quranic Dispensation and therein he utterly failed, for his law has not been truly established even in a single household, not to speak of a whole people or country. 1294. Commentary: The real cause of shirk (idolatry) lies in failure on the part of men to understand the object and purpose of their creation. A mushrik (idolater) has a false conception of the person and attributes of God and of his own 1236