“He sets forth for you a parable from your own lives. Do you have among your slaves some who share with you the sustenance that We have bestowed on you so that you become equals in it, all being alike, and then you would hold them in fear as you fear each other? Thus do We make plain the Signs for those who use reason.”
(Al Qur’ān – 30:28)
The polytheists recognised that God is the Creator and Lord of the heavens and the earth and everything therein. In spite of this, they ascribed Divinity to some of God’s creatures, declaring them to be associates in His Divinity. They addressed their prayers to these so-called partners, made offerings to them, and took them as their objects of worship.
We have some idea of the Arabian polytheists’ belief about these so-called partners of God by the words they used to utter while circumambulating the Ka’bah: “Here we are, O Allah, here we are. You have none as partner except the Partner Who is Yours, he whom You own along with all his possessions.”
In the present ayah God refutes this brand of polytheism precisely. The purpose of this parable is to highlight the self-contradiction to which the polytheists had fallen prey. On the one hand, they believed that those human beings who had accidentally become their slaves could not be regarded as co-sharers of their properties. On the other hand, they believed that God had made some of His own creatures partners in His Godhead. They should better see reason before entertaining such silly notions.