Question:
Q25:3 says the disbelievers as those who takes idols or that which is created and harmless as “gods”. But what makes an object a “god/ilah” ?
Allah says “Yet instead of God they worship things that can neither benefit nor harm them”(Q25:55)
What is meant by “worship” ?
The Wahabis say, the mushriks admitted Allah as Creator, Controller, Sustainer of the heavens and Earth & hence what made the object “ilah” is worship. Hence certain acts like invoking & seeking intercession is what constitutes worship. And this would imply the Wahabis are right in saying that seeking help/intercession from an object besides Allah is shirk and makes the object a ilah.
If Wahabis are wrong, then in what sense as per the Quran did the mushriks take an object as “ilah“, “partner” and “worship” it ?
Answer:
Such fundamental questions were addressed at length in Mawlana Shaykh Hisham Kabbani’s volume entitled “The Doctrine of Ahl al-Sunna vs. the ‘Salafi’ Movement” which is available in full here.
Hajj Gibril Haddad