Tazkirul Quran, Qur’an 21:55–58
The Prophets (Al-Anbiya’)
By Maulana Wahiduddin Khan
English text; the translator is not named in the archive’s data.
Translation
(55) They said, ‘Have you brought us the truth or are you jesting?’ (56) Abraham replied, ‘Your Lord is the Lord of the heavens and the earth, who created them, and I bear witness to that. (57) By the Lord, I will devise a plan against your deities after you have gone away and turned your backs!’ (58) He broke them all into pieces, except for the biggest one of them, so that they might return to it [for enquiry].
Commentary
(a) During Abraham’s period, people’s minds were in the grip of polytheistic ideas, so much so that in the beginning they took Abraham’s criticism to be frivolous. Therefore, they asked him whether his utterances had been well thought out, or whether he was mouthing words out of sheer frivolity.
Abraham said that the fact that they considered matters of the greatest importance as frivolous was further proof of their ignorance. The truth is that the entire earth and the heavens bear testimony to the word of God. The next day, in an act of extraordinary courage, he broke down their deities. In this way, Abraham proved in practice what he had been saying in theory, namely, that the deities were absolutely worthless.