Surah Al-An'aam (6) — Ayah 137

(Ayah 137) ➊ {وَ كَذٰلِكَ زَيَّنَ لِكَثِيْرٍ مِّنَ الْمُشْرِكِيْنَ ……:} This was their second ignorance and misguidance, and it is connected to {’’جَعَلُوْا‘‘}, meaning just as they assigned a portion of their crops and cattle to their partners, in the same way, for many polytheists, their partners made the killing of their children seem attractive, and generally, three excuses were presented before them as justification: first, that how will you feed them, that is: «خَشْيَةَ اِمْلَاقٍ » [ بنی إسرائیل : ۳۱ ] "for fear of poverty." Just as nowadays so-called Muslims are also doing this in the name of planning, let alone the disbelievers. Second, the disgrace associated with having a daughter, as He said: «{يَتَوَارٰى مِنَ الْقَوْمِ مِنْ سُوْٓءِ مَا بُشِّرَ بِهٖ } » [ النحل : ۵۹ ] "He hides himself from the people because of the evil of that which he has been given the glad tidings of." And third, to please their partners, slaughtering their children in their names, which Hindus call offering as a sacrifice, and these priests and temple worshippers were called partners because they considered them involved in their benefit and harm, and at their encouragement, they would offer children as sacrifices, just as nowadays many grave worshippers do this, and also because accepting anyone's command over Allah's command is also making them a partner, and the greatest partner is Satan, by whose beautification they commit shirk with Allah and wrong themselves.

➋ {لِيُرْدُوْهُمْ وَ لِيَلْبِسُوْا عَلَيْهِمْ دِيْنَهُمْ :’’ لِيُرْدُوْهُمْ ‘‘} In the form of the verb from the Bab If'aal, the meaning of {’’ اَرْدٰي يُرْدِيْ ‘‘} is to destroy. { ’’ لِيَلْبِسُوْا ‘‘} If it is "{لَبَسَ يَلْبِسُ} (ض)", then it means to mix up, and if it is { ’’ لَبِسَ يَلْبَسُ ‘‘} (س), then it means to wear. The Arabs originally claimed to be on the religion of Ibrahim (peace be upon him), but Satan gradually introduced idol worship, child killing, and many wrong things into their religion. He (Allah) said that their partners did all this to ruin them and to mix up their religion.

➌ {وَ لَوْ شَآءَ اللّٰهُ مَا فَعَلُوْهُ ……:} But this would be compulsion and against the choice that Allah Almighty has given His servants for testing, so you leave them to their state; all their actions He declared as fabrication (lying).

137. 1. This is a reference to their burying their daughters alive or offering them as sacrifices to idols.
137. 2. That is, to mix shirk into their religion.
137. 3. That is, if Allah had taken away their freedom of will and choice through His authority and power, then surely they would not have done the deeds mentioned above. But doing so would have been compulsion, in which there could be no test for man, whereas Allah wants to test man by giving him freedom of will and choice. Therefore, Allah did not enforce compulsion.

137. And thus, to many of the polytheists, their partners have made the killing of their children [145] seem fair to them, so as to ruin them and to confuse them in their religion [147]. Had Allah willed, they would not have done so. So leave them and what they fabricate.

[145]
Three Reasons for Killing Children:

In the Age of Ignorance, children were killed for three reasons.
(1) Daughters were buried alive due to the shame that someone would become their son-in-law, before whom their eyes would be lowered, and also because if she went to or was married into another tribe, many complicated issues would arise, since their prevailing tribal system was based on tribalism and ended in disputes and wars.
(2) Lack of trust in Allah: Some people, whether the child was a son or a daughter, would kill their children because they thought they would not be able to bear their expenses or maintain their standard of living. In this crime, almost the entire society of today is involved, which, in the name of family planning, openly commits this crime by inventing methods of birth control, abortion, and sterilization of women and men, and these acts are carried out under the patronage of governments and are considered highly commendable.
(3) Vows in the name of idols: That is, if I have so many sons, I will sacrifice one son before such-and-such idol, just as your grandfather Abdul Muttalib also made a vow that if he had twelve sons, he would sacrifice one son. Then the lot for this vow fell upon your father Abdullah, who was ultimately ransomed with the blood money of one hundred camels. For example, if such-and-such work of mine is accomplished, I will sacrifice a son or daughter before such-and-such idol.

Innovators Are Also, in Reality, Partners with Allah:

In this verse, the partners referred to are those people who invented the above-mentioned forms of killing and whom society accepted. Since, from the Shariah perspective, the authority to legislate in every way belongs to Allah, the originators of these customs became partners with Allah. The crime of these people was not only that they killed their children, but an even greater crime was that instead of considering such acts as crimes, they regarded them as good and beneficial for their welfare.
[146] By destruction is meant both types of destruction: moral and civilizational. Moral, in the sense that murder itself is such a severe crime that it creates wickedness and hard-heartedness in a person, making him bolder in committing further murders, and the killing of children is an even greater crime than ordinary murder. It was the effect of this that in tribal Arabia, if a dispute arose over a trivial matter, killing and bloodshed would immediately begin. In that society, blood had become extremely cheap, and moral decline had reached such a level that neither life, nor property, nor honor was safe. And civilizational destruction, in the sense that a nation that starts destroying its own children in this way—how long can it maintain its existence in this world? Then, as a result of such acts, their destruction in the Hereafter is a reality about which there is no room for doubt.

[147]
Some Good Qualities of the Polytheists of Makkah:

The polytheists of Makkah considered themselves followers of Sayyiduna Ibrahim ؑ. Then, there were some good things present among them that gave rise to this suspicion. For example, in acts of worship: circumambulation of the Ka'bah, Sa'i between Safa and Marwah, and performing the rituals of Hajj and Umrah, although many wrong customs and beliefs had also become mixed in these. And in ethics and dealings: hospitality, keeping promises, truthfulness, avoidance of lying, granting protection to someone and then fulfilling it with full responsibility, etc. However, by the Prophetic era, their religion had been suppressed under a mixture of polytheism and innovations. One reason for this is that the scriptures of Ibrahim were not preserved, and there was no standard to determine when a particular act or custom began and whether it had any Shariah justification or not. The second reason is the passage of time, that is, the period of three thousand years from Sayyiduna Ibrahim ؑ to your Prophethood. During this time, countless originators of polytheism and innovations kept arising and kept including their inventions in this religion, and due to the absence of any real standard, the nation considered them part of the religion and continued to practice them.

When Did the Belief in Denial of the Hereafter Become Prevalent Among the Polytheists of Makkah?

Some understanding of these matters can be attained to some extent, but the thing that is difficult to trace is that most of the polytheists of Makkah acknowledged Allah as the Creator and Owner, but denied resurrection, the Day of Judgment, and reward and punishment in the Hereafter. The absence of such an essential component of faith among the followers of a prophet is a matter of great astonishment. Who was the originator of the belief in denial of the Hereafter among these polytheists, and in which era was this belief invented? It is difficult to say anything about this.