'Abdullāh Ibn 'Abbās / Muḥammad al-Fīrūzabādī
تفسير : (then why did those whom they had chosen for) worshipped as (gods as a way of approach (unto allah)) as a means to bring them closer to allah (not help them? (nay, but they did fail them utterly) that which they worshipped is made void. (and (all) that was their lie, and what they used to invent) and what they used to lie about allah.
Jalāl al-Dīn al-Maḥallī
تفسير : so why did they not help them, by averting from them the chastisement, those whom they had chosen besides god, that is to say, other than him, as [a means of] nearness, through whom they may secure nearness to god, to be gods?, alongside him, and these are the idols (the first object of ittakhadhū, ‘they had chosen’, is the omitted pronoun referred to by the relative clause [alladhīna, ‘those who …’], and it is hum, ‘they’; qurbānan, ‘nearness’, is the second [object], with ālihatan, ‘gods’, as its substitution). nay, but they forsook them, when the chastisement came down [on them], and that, that is to say, [that] choosing of theirs of idols as gods as a means of nearness [to god], was their lie and what they used to invent — the lies they used to speak (mā, ‘what’, either relates to the verbal action [‘their lying’], or it indicates a relative clause with the referential pronoun omitted, this being fīhi, ‘about’).
