Tafsir of An-Nahl 16:20

(And those whom they invoke)—This is the commencement of verifying that their deities are far removed from the merit of worship, clarifying this to such an extent that no shred of doubt remains, by enumerating their conditions that are ostensibly contradictory to such merit. It is as if these were explained—despite their obviousness—to draw attention to the perfect foolishness of the polytheists and the fact that they do not realize this except through explicit statement. That is: The deities whom you worship, O disbelievers, (besides Allah) (Exalted is He), (do not create anything)—not a single thing at all; meaning, such is not their affair.

Some eminent scholars have mentioned that mentioning this after denying resemblance and partnership serves as a proof for that. It is as if it were said: They do not create anything, and the one who creates is not partnered by one who does not create. The conclusion from the third premise is: They do not partner with the One who creates, which necessitates that the One who creates does not partner with them. Thus, there is no repetition.

An objection was raised against this: It is based on the assumption that "the one who creates" and "the one who does not" are applied to non-specific entities. It is understood from the previous discourse of these scholars that the argument is based on the first being Allah (Most High) and the second being the idols. The analysis there requires no need for this premise, as it is known and a foregone conclusion. Therefore, the aspect [of the matter] is that the repetition is for the sake of parallelism with His saying (they are created).

It was countered that the statement explicitly implies generality in both places. As for specifying them as mentioned, it is because "the one who creates" is, in our view, uniquely specific to Him (Exalted is He) in reality, just as the daylight star is specific to the sun, even if the concept is general. And "the one who does not create," even if it is general in the mind and in reality, its interpretation here as "those who are worshipped" is necessitated by the context. The implication of the [previous] analysis is not the lack of need for the premise, but rather that it is of such extreme obviousness that it needs no proof, which validates its role as part of the evidence. When the intended meaning becomes clear, the objection vanishes.

Perhaps the most plausible aspect in justifying the mention is what we indicated first. And since there is no necessary link at all between the negation of being a creator and the state of being created, He affirmed the latter for them explicitly, in the sense that their nature is that they are created; for their state of being created is a necessity of their very essences, as they are contingent, dependent in their existence and persistence upon an Agent. The [passive] voice of the verb was used for the object, as some eminent scholars have stated, to realize the antithesis and opposition between what was affirmed for them and what was negated from them regarding the attributes of being a creator and being created, and to signal the lack of need to state the Agent due to the clarity of the uniqueness of its Agent (Glorious is His Majesty). Perhaps the postponement of the pronoun here is merely for reverence, and the intended meaning of "creation"—both negated and affirmed—is the meaning that immediately comes to mind.

It is permissible that the second [mention of creation] refers to carving and fashioning, based on the assumption that what is meant by "those whom they invoke" are the idols, and they are addressed with the term used for rational beings because they [the polytheists] treat them as such. Expressing this as "creation" is to observe parallelism. In that, there is an allusion to the utter triviality of the polytheists' intellects, in that they associated their own creations with their Creator. Intending this meaning for the first [mention of creation] as well is of no account, as the power to do such carving is not something upon which the merit of worship revolves at all.

The majority recited "you conceal" (tusirrūna) and "you reveal" (tuʿlinūna) and "you invoke" (tadʿūna) with the letter ta (second person), which is the recitation of Mujahid, al-A'raj, Shaybah, Abu Ja'far, and Hubayrah from Asim. In the famous transmission from him [Asim], it is narrated that he recited with ya (third person) for the last verb, and ta for the first two. All three were recited with ya in a transmission from Abu Amr and Hamza. al-A'mash recited "And Allah knows what you show and what you conceal, and those you invoke..." etc., with ta for all three verbs. Talha recited "what you hide and what you reveal and [what] you invoke" with ta as well. These two recitations were interpreted as explanatory, for they contradict the script of the Uthmanic codex. Muhammad al-Yamani recited "yudʿawna" (are invoked) with a damma on the ya and a fatha on the ʿayn in the passive voice, meaning: the disbelievers invoke and worship them.