“[Ask them]: Who is better: Allah or the gods that they associate with Him as His partners? Who is it that has created the heavens and the earth and sent down for you water from the sky and then We caused to grow therewith orchards full of beauty whose trees you could never grow. Is there any god associated with Allah [in these tasks]? Nay, they are a people who are veering away from the Right Path.”
(Al Qur’ān 27:59-60)
This seems to be a very strange question to ask: who is better – Allah or the gods that they associate with Him as His partners? For quite obviously there can be no goodness in false gods. But the Qur’ān posed this question so as to warn people against the mistake they were committing.
No one does anything in which he doesn’t find some kind of benefit. If polytheists worshipped deities other than the One True God, and if they asked those deities to fulfil their needs and made offerings to them, they must be convinced that they were doing something good, otherwise all this would be a meaningless activity. Hence why they are confronted with this question in no uncertain terms. By posing this question the Qur’ān immediately disarms its opponents. In what follows, a series of miraculous and extraordinary elements in God’s creation are mentioned, in succession, each accompanied by the question: “Is there any God associated with Allah in these tasks?” If the answer is “no”, how could they worship anyone other than Him?