Afaman huwa qa-imun AAala kulli nafsin bima kasabat wajaAAaloo lillahi shurakaa qul (surah Raad: 33)

Tafseer Tafheem-ul-Quran by Syed Abu-al-A'la Maududi

(13:33) What! are they (so audacious that they are) setting up partners with Him Who is watching minutely over the actions of each and every soul? *50 , *51 O Prophet say to them, "(If God has Himself set them up as His partners) just tell me their names. Do you mean to inform Him of something new that He Himself is unaware of on His earth? Or do you merely utter empty words? *52 Indeed for those who rejected the Message their fraud *53 has been made to appear fair to them and they have been debarred froth the Right Way: *54 and there is none to show the Right Way to those whom Allah lets go astray.

Afaman Huwa qaaa`imun `alaa kulli nafsim bimaa kasabat; wa ja`aloo illlaahi shurakaaa`a qul samoohum; am tunabbi`oona hoo bimaa laa ya`lamu fil ardi; am bizaahirim minal qawl; bal zuyyina lillazeena kafaroo makruhum wa suddoo `anis sabeel; wa mai yudlilil laaahu famaa lahoo min haad

*50) That is, "They are so audacious that they set up partners with Allah Whose knowledge is All-Comprehensive and Who is aware of even the minutest details of the good and bad actions of each individual..."
*51) These are the audacious things they do. They ascribe partners and equals to Him: they believe that some of His creatures are a part and parcel of His Being, and have attributes and rights like Him: they presume that they shall not be called to account for whatever they do, even though they live in His Kingdom.
*52) That is, "You give empty names to the partners you ascribe to Him for you have no real knowledge about them" . For you could get this knowledge only in one of the three following ways:
First, You might have received some authentic information that Allah had made such and such people as His partners in His attributes, powers and rights. If it is so, please Iet us also know their names and the source of your information.
The second possibility is that Allah might have remained ignorant that some beings have become His partners. Therefore you are going to inform Him about this. If it is so, please say it clearly in so many words so that it may be decided whether there are some foolish people who can believe in such a nonsensical claim.
Obviously the above two suppositions are absurd. Therefore the only alternative is that, "You are ascribing partners to Him without any rhyme or reason, and you without any knowledge make one the relative of God, another the hearer of supplications, and still another the helper and fulfiller of certain needs and the ruler of a certain region etc. etc."
*53) Shirk has been called "fraud" because none of the angels, spirits, saints, heavenly bodies, to whom they ascribe Divine attributes and powers or render Divine rights, ever claimed to possess these attributes or powers, nor did they ever demand these rights from the people nor told the people that they would fulfil their desires and wants, if they would perform some rituals of worship before them. As a matter of fact, some clever people invented these gods in order to practice wilful deception and dishonesty so that they might wield powerful influence over the common people and exploit them and deprive them of a part of their hard earned possessions. Accordingly, they made the common people credulous followers of the gods of their inventions and set themselves up as their representatives to get money, etc.., from them by this fraud.
The second reason why shirk has been called "fraud" is that a worldly man pretends to believe in it not because he wants to believe in it but in order to free himself from aII moral restraints to enable him to lead an irresponsible life of treed and lust.
The third reason is given below in E. N . 54.
*54) Shirk is also `fraud' in the sense that it has been made to appear fair for them and so leads them into deviation and prevents them from coming back to the Right Way. It is like this: When mushriks adopt wrong ways of deviation that suit the kind of lives they wish to lead, they have to invent arguments to pacify their consciences and convince other people that grey are on the right way. Naturally this fraud confirms them on the way of deviation and they are debarred from the Right Way.