A Human Failing

Men, serve your Lord, Who has created you and those who have gone before you, so that you may guard yourselves against evil; Who has made the earth a bed for you and the sky a dome, and has sent down water from the sky to bring forth fruits for your sustenance. Do not knowingly set up other gods beside Him.

(The Quran 2:21-22)

Man is a creature who cannot survive on his own. At all times he requires many a support to maintain his existence in this world: an earth whose gravity keeps him upon its surface; an atmosphere to provide him with a constant supply of oxygen; a sun, which unfailingly gives him heat and light; an abundance of water, without which no human life is possible; a variety of foods to give him continual nourishment. God, therefore, as the Creator of man, and of all the other things in the heavens and on earth, has made lavish provision of all these innumerable other things for man’s existence in this world.

Indeed, God has brought into existence the entire universe and everything is under His constant surveillance. That is why the only proper course for man is to accept God as his Creator, Sustainer and Lord, without
associating anyone or any thing in His godhead. But since God is not visible, it sometimes happens that man comes to attach importance to something visible, and perhaps tangible and then accords to it the status of divinity. A creature, or a thing, comes, partly or wholly, to be regarded as the Creator’s equal, and is sometimes even given the name of God.

This is where man falls into serious error. For the Prophet’s call to man is to accord the status of greatness to God alone. Any thing or creature seated on the pedestal of divinity must therefore be unseated and divested of this status of greatness. It is only fitting, and in the true nature of things, that man should worship God alone, without associating any other object with Him.