What does not harm them and does not benefit them are the idols, which are inanimate and cannot provide benefit or harm. It is said that if they worshipped them, they did not benefit them, and if they abandoned their worship, they did not harm them. It is a right of the object of worship to be rewarding for obedience and punishing for disobedience. The people of Ta'if used to worship al-Lat, and the people of Mecca worshipped al-Uzza, Manat, Hubal, Asaf, and Nailah. They would say, 'These are our intercessors with Allah.' And concerning al-Nadr ibn al-Harith: 'On the Day of Resurrection, al-Lat and al-Uzza will intercede for me.' Do you inform Allah of what He does not know? Do you tell Him that they are intercessors with Him, while this is informing of something that is not known to Allah? If it is not known to Him, and He is the All-Knowing, encompassing all knowledge, then it is nothing, for a thing is what is known and about which information is provided. Thus, it was a report that has no subject of reporting. If you say: How did they inform Allah of that? I say: It is mockery of them and of what they claimed is impossible, which is the intercession of idols. It indicates that what they informed Him of is false and not valid under the truth, as if they are informing Him of something that does not pertain to His knowledge, just as a man informs another man of something he does not know. And it was read: 'Do you inform?' with a lightening of the verb. And His saying: 'In the heavens and not in the earth' is an affirmation of its negation, for what does not exist in both is negated and nonexistent. 'They associate' was read with a ت and a ي, and what is either relative or gerundive, meaning concerning the partners they associate with Him or concerning their associating.