The same meaning is being conveyed in the verse where Hazrat Yusuf tell his inmates, ““You only worship mere names besides Him which you have given, you and your fathers.” The proof is that God has given them no authority. God has not sent down for them any authority.”
If there was any reality about these gods there would have been proofs and it is impossible that someone is considered a partner of God but without proof so there should be proof and since there is none then it is proven that he has no partners. The next lines of this verse conclude “there is no judgment but God’s. He has bidden that you worship none but Him.” and then adds, “This is the right religion, but most people do not know!”
Every sentence of this verse is a proof of the refutation of polytheism. On the hand that will the all-knowing and wise God give an incorrect order to His subjects? beside it says that God has not issued any authority and proof for your gods to exist.
In the second instance it says that only the One God has the right to rule this universe and the proof is the existence of the signs of the one system in various ways.
The third is that God has given the permission to worship only Him the One God and is it possible
They will have no help and no guidance and they will have no intellectual proof for what they In the end this verse concludes by its judgment that polytheism is the result of ignorance and foolishness and so it says, “, but most people do not know!”
Some commentators think that the belief of the idolaters was that the One god was the great light of truth and the angels were lesser lights emanating from the great light and they used to make an idol to commemorate the name of the lesser lights and then declare them to be gods and then worshipped them. It tells us that those idols and their names were fictitious or mere conjectures and they had no reality and they were but names of their whims. (1)
The topic of the third verse is connected with the second and God says, criticizing them for idolatry, “They worship besides God that for which He has not sent any authority.”
This speaks about it not being learned or discerned from sources and it later says,
“and that of which they have no knowledge”. In the end the verse says, “there shall be no help0er for the unjust.” No one will help them when the chastisement of the Lord comes, they will have did. It is possible that the verse includes all the three meanings.
(1) Tafsir Al Kabeer Vol. 18 Page 141
