His saying, exalted and glorified is He: "And the Day He calls to them and says, 'Where are My partners that you used to claim?" They will say, 'Our Lord, these are the ones whom we led astray; we led them astray as we ourselves went astray. We disassociate ourselves from You; they did not worship us.'" And it will be said, 'Call your partners,' so they called them, but they did not respond to them. And they saw the punishment; if only they had been guided."

The meaning is: And remember the Day, and this calling may be through an intermediary, and it may be without that. The pronoun in "He calls" refers to the worshippers of idols, and the reference is to Quraysh. His saying, "Where" is in the context of reproach and reprimand, and His saying, "My partners" means: according to your saying and claim.

Qadi Abu Muhammad, may Allah have mercy on him, said: Since this question is humiliating for them, it seems that it does not pertain to the majority of disbelievers, except to those who led them astray, and to the specific individuals and leaders among them, and to the misleading devils. It seems that this misguided group only approached the disbelievers with knowledge that the saying against them is certain, and that the word of punishment is inevitable. However, they were greedy to disassociate themselves from those disbelieving followers, so they said: 'Our Lord, these are the ones we misled as we ourselves went astray by our own effort for ourselves and for them.' They wanted them to follow us, and they loved disbelief as we loved it, so we disassociate ourselves from them to You, and they did not worship us; they worshipped others.

Qadi Abu Muhammad, may Allah have mercy on him, said: This stopping applies to all disbelievers, and the responders are all the misleading ones, each one calling to disbelief, from the devils of jinn, and from the humans, the noblemen, leaders, and masters.

And the majority read: "We misled" with a فتح (fathah) on the waw. It is said: A man went astray (غوى) with a كسر (kasrah) on the waw. It was narrated from Ibn 'Amir and 'Asim: "We went astray" with a كسر (kasrah) on the waw.

Then Allah, blessed and exalted, informed that it will be said to the disbelievers who worship idols that they believed to be gods: "Call your partners," meaning the idols that you claimed were partners to Allah. He added the partners to them since that name is by their claim and assertion. This saying is a principle of specification; He added the partners to them, then informed that they called them, but there was nothing among the inanimate objects that would respond. And the disbelievers saw the punishment. And His saying, exalted and glorified is He: "If only they had been guided," Al-Zajjaj and others among the interpreters went to the view that the answer to "if" is omitted, its meaning being: if the punishment had not befallen them, or: if they had not been in the world worshipping idols. Thus, in this speech - according to this interpretation - there is regret for them, and that is possible with our understanding of the answer: "if they had not been worshipping idols," and in our understanding of the answer: "if the punishment had not befallen them" as a blessing from Us. And a group said: "if" is related to what precedes it, its meaning being: they wished if only they had been guided.