“We sent Abraham and he said to his people: ‘Serve Allah and fear Him. This is better for you if you only knew. Those that you worship instead of Allah are merely idols, and you are simply inventing lies (about them). Indeed those whom you worship beside Allah have no power to provide you with any sustenance. So seek your sustenance from Allah and serve only Him and give thanks to Him alone. It is to Him that you will be sent back’.”
(Al Qur’ān – 29:16-17)
Prophet Abraham exhorted his people to fear God and give up associating others with Him in His Divinity. His people were to eschew disobedience of God. When they set up idols, they were in fact guilty of inventing falsehoods. This, because the idols themselves were an embodiment of falsehood. The same applies to the baseless notions they cherished about these idols: that they were gods or goddesses, God’s incarnations, His offspring or favourites, or that they had the power to intercede with God, to heal the sick, or grant people a livelihood. The unbelievers and polytheists fabricated these notions. The only truth about them was that they were idols – lifeless, powerless, and resourceless.
These few sentences of Prophet Abraham enshrine a great number of cogent arguments against idolatry. It goes without saying that there must be a convincing reason to take someone as one’s Lord. One such reason could be that He is intrinsically worthy of worship. The second reason could be that He is man’s Creator to whom he owes his existence.