“(Let them not forget) that the Day when Allah will call unto them, and say: ‘Where are those whom you imagined to be My associates?’ Those against whom the word will be realised will say: ‘Our Lord, these are the ones whom we led astray just as we ourselves strayed. We absolve ourselves before You of all blame. It was not us that they worshipped’.”
(Al Qur’ān – 28:62-63)
The ayat 28:62 says that the insistence of the people on associating others with God in His Divinity, on idolatry and on denying Prophethood merely for the sake of worldly gains will lead them to an evil end in the Hereafter. It also tells them that even if nothing happened to them in this world – if no calamity befell them and they continued to enjoy the pleasures of this life – they would still come to a grievous end in the Hereafter. They ought to think carefully what kind of bargain they were making: a bargain of profit or of loss?
‘Those against whom the word will be realised’ refers to the satans, jinns and human beings who were set up as associates of God in His Divinity and whose word they preferred to the Word of God and His Messengers. It is these for whose sake people had forsaken the Straight Path. Whether or not people explicitly called them god (ilāh) and lord (rabb), they were still guilty of associating them with God if they unreservedly obeyed and followed them in a manner that only God should be obeyed and followed.