مِن دُونِ اللَّهِ ۖ قَالُوا ضَلُّوا عَنَّا بَل لَّمْ نَكُن نَّدْعُو مِن قَبْلُ شَيْئًا ۚ كَذَٰلِكَ يُضِلُّ اللَّهُ الْكَافِرِينَ (74)
(40:74) associated with Allah in His Divinity?' *102 They will say: 'We have lost them; rather, we never used to call upon anyone before.' *103 Thus will Allah cause them to stumble in error.
*102) That is, "If they really were gods or associates in Godhead, and you worshipped them in the hope that they would help you in the evil time, then why don't they come to rescue you now?"
*103) They do not mean to say, "We did not associate them with God in the world," but they mean: "Now we have understood well that those whom we invoked in the world, were nothing and mere nonentities."