104. There now follows an elucidation of the 'ignorance' which those people-insistently clung to, and which they were not prepared to forsake. They are also told about that major 'wrong' which, if not abandoned, will bar their way to salvation.
105. They themselves acknowledged that the earth belongs to God, and that
it is He Who causes the vegetation to grow. They also affirmed that God is the
creator of the animals which were yoked to their service. They believed, however,
that the grace of God for them was the outcome of the blessing and benediction
of the angels, jinn, heavenly stars, spirits of their pious ancestors and so
on, who cared for their well-being and were their patrons. They therefore used
to make a two-fold division of their harvest and livestock offerings. One part
was devoted to God in recognition of their gratitude to Him for having granted
them farms and animals, while the rest was devoted to the household gods of
either their family or tribes in order to ensure their continuing grace and
benediction.
First, God censures them for this iniquity and asks them - since all those animals
were created and had been granted to them by God alone - what justification
there is for making offerings to others. Is it not sheer ingratitude to ascribe
the acts of benevolence and grace of the true Benefactor to the intercession
of others, and to associate them with God in thanksgiving? Second, they are
censured indirectly for assigning quite an arbitrary share in their offerings
to God, as if they themselves were the law-maker who could ascribe shares to
God and others as they wished. To God alone belong all the bounties He has given
man, and only His Law should therefore determine what part of those bounties
should be offered to Him in thanksgiving and how the remaining should be spent.
Hence even if they spend something in the way of Allah, for the poor and the
deprived, but according to their own will, that does not deserve to be accepted
by Him.
106. This is subtle sarcasm at the trickery to which the polytheists resorted
while dividing the offerings between God and the partners whom they had set
up with Him. By one device and another they increased the share of the false
deities, which only showed that their heart lay with those sham partners of
God rather than with Him.
It is instructive to recall those tricks. If, while they were apportioning God's
share of cereals and fruits, anything belonging to His share fell out of its
place, it used to be added to the portion earmarked for the share of God's partners.
On the contrary, if any part of the, partners' share fell out or got mixed up
with the portion earmarked for God, they were most careful to return it to where
it belonged. Whenever they were criticized for this, they had a number of interesting
apologies to offer. They said, for instance, that being the Creator, God is
Self-Sufficient and hence He does not care if His portion is in some way reduced.
As for the 'partners', they were not after all self-sufficient and would therefore
take them to task for the slightest diminution in their share.
In order to grasp what lay at the root of these superstitions, it is essential
to know that the portion which these ignorant people earmarked for God was devoted
to helping the indigent, the poor, travellers, orphans and so on. On the other
hand, the portion earmarked for offerings to the partners' actually went either
directly to the coffers of the priestly class or was offered at the shrines
and thus ultimately reached the priests and caretakers of those shrines. Over
the course of centuries these selfish religious leaders had impressed upon those
simple-minded people that there was no harm in God's share being reduced, but
that of God's dear ones, far from being diminished, should be increased.