falawlā naṣarahumu alladhīna ittakhadhū min dūni l-lahi qur'bānan ālihatan bal ḍallū ʿanhum wadhālika if'kuhum wamā kānū yaftarūna
Translation
Then why did those they took besides Allāh as deities by which to approach [Him]1487 not aid them? But they had strayed [i.e., departed] from them. And that was their falsehood and what they were inventing.
Verse 28 of Surah Al-Ahqaf (46:28), a Meccan surah, is in juz 26, on page 505 of the mushaf. Read it in Arabic with its transliteration, translations and tafsir, and listen to it recited by 74 reciters.
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Tafsir of verse 28
Al-Mukhtasar
So why did their idols which they took as gods besides Allah and which they used to seek closeness to through worship and sacrifice not help them? They did not help them at all, but in fact they disappeared from them when they needed them the most. And that is the lie and fabrication they did to themselves, i.e., that these idols will benefit them and intercede for them with Allah.
Why is it that they were not helped by those [idols] whom they took as gods besides Allah so that they might bring them closer to Him12? Rather, they were lost from them. Such was [the outcome of] their falsehood and the lies they used to fabricate.
Notes
[12] As they used to claim.
Then why did those whom they had taken for âlihah (gods) besides Allâh, as a way of approach (to Allâh) not help them? Nay, but they vanished completely from them (when there came the torment). And that was their lie, and their inventions which they had been inventing (before their destruction).
Then why did those whom they had chosen for gods as a way of approach (unto Allah) not help them? Nay, but they did fail them utterly. And (all) that was their lie, and what they used to invent.
Why then was no help forthcoming to them from those whom they worshipped as gods, besides Allah, as a means of access (to Allah)? Nay, they left them in the lurch: but that was their falsehood and their invention.
Why did not then those help them whom they took for gods besides Allah to draw (them) nigh (to Him)? Nay! they were lost to them; and this was their lie and what they forged.
Then had the ones whom they had taken to themselves as near-stationed (mediators), gods, apart from Allah, vindicated them? No indeed, (but) they erred away from them, and that was their falsehood and what they used to fabricate.
The example of those who take allies other than Allāh is like that of the spider who takes [i.e., constructs] a home. And indeed, the weakest of homes is the home of the spider, if they only knew.
Before them is Hell, and what they had earned will not avail them at all nor what they had taken besides Allāh as allies. And they will have a great punishment.
