Ar-Room (The Romans)

28. “He sets forth to you a parable relating to yourselves. Have you among those whom your right hands possess partners in what We have given you for sustenance, so that with respect to it you are alike, you fear them as you fear each other? Thus do We explain the signs in detail for a people who understand.”

Using parables is sometimes one of the ways of propagation and education.

You are not the real owner; yet you are not ready to have partner, then how do you take pieces of stone and wood as partners of the Creator and the real Owner. So the Qur’an also mentions a proof upon the negation of polytheism in the form of stating a parable.

It says:

“He sets forth to you a parable relating to yourselves…”

That parable is as follows:

“…Have you among those whom your right hands possess partners in what We have given you for sustenance, so that with respect to it you are alike…”

So that you fear that they, independently and without your permission, interfere in your properties as you fear about free partners in your own properties or heritage.

The above verse continues saying:

“…you fear them as you fear each other?…”

When you consider such a thing wrong concerning your slaves, who are in your casual possession, how do you take the creatures that are in Allah’s true possession as His partners? Or you count some prophets as Jesus (as), or Divine angels, or some creatures as jinn, or idols made of stone and wood as the partners of Allah? What an ugly judgment and far from logic it is?

The casual owned objects, that may become free very soon and come in the same row with you (as Islam had designed it) they, as an owned one, never stand in the row of their owner and they have no right to interfere in his realm, then how the true owned ones whose whole entity belong to Allah, and it is impossible that this dependence be ceased, because whatever they have are from Him and without Him they are nothing, how have they chosen them as partners with Allah?

Some of the commentators have said that the verse refers to the words that polytheists of Quraysh mentioned at the time of Hajj rites when saying: /labbayk/, because in their Hajj rites they used to say:

“O Allah! You have a partner that You are its owner as well as the owner of what it possesses.”1

It is obvious that, like other occasions of revelation, this occasion of revelation does not limit the meaning of the verse and, however, the verse is an answer to the whole polytheists and, taking their life which used to turn upon the pivot of slavery, it brings argumentation for them.

The application of the Qur’anic phrase: /ma razaqnakum/ (what We have given you for sustenance) points to this matter that you are neither the true owner of these slaves nor the true owner of your properties, because all of them belong to Allah, yet you are not ready to transfer your own casual properties to your own casual slaves and accept them as your partners, while there will not appear any difficulty and impossibility from the genetic point, because the statement is upon the axis of authenticities.

But the difference between Allah and His creatures is a genetic difference which is invariable, and their taking partner is impossible!

On the other side, worshipping a creature is either because of its greatness, or for the benefit or harm that man gets from it, but these artificial objects of worship have neither that nor this.

For emphasis on being more careful of the content of this question, at the end of the verse the Qur’an says:

“…Thus do We explain the signs in detail for a people who understand.”

Yes, by mentioning some clear parables from the inside of your life, the facts are reiterated in order that you contemplate and do not accept at least something for Allah, the Lord of the worlds, that you do not admit it for yourself.