Indeed, those whom you call upon besides Allah, that is, you worship them and name them deities besides Allah, are servants like you. And His saying, 'servants like you,' is a mockery of them. That is, their utmost state is that they are alive and rational. If that is established, then they are servants like you, with no superiority between you. Then He invalidated the notion that they are servants like them by saying, 'Do they have legs by which they walk?' It was said: 'servants like you' are owned like you. And Sa'id ibn Jubair read: 'Indeed, those whom you call upon besides Allah are servants like you' with a softened 'Indeed' and 'servants like you' in the accusative, meaning: 'What are those whom you call upon besides Allah, servants like you?' This is by employing the negating 'Indeed' in the same way as the interrogative 'What' in the Hijaz dialect. Say, 'Call upon your partners and seek their help in your enmity against me. Then plot against me, all of you, you and your partners, and do not give me respite. Indeed, I do not care about you.' No one says this except one who is confident in the protection of Allah. They had threatened him with their deities, so he was commanded to address them with that, just as the people of Hud said to him: 'We say nothing but that some of our deities have afflicted you with evil.' He said to them: 'Indeed, I am free from what you associate with Him. So plot against me all together, then do not give me respite.'