The Foolishness of the Quraysh

The sūrah then sets out a number of the follies of the Quraysh. They were very foolish. And this is the great ignorance — for why should that whole age be called ignorance, jāhiliyyah? There have been many other decadent ages in history; why is this one not simply called decadent? It is called jāhiliyyah, ignorance, because it was true darkness. They had been without a prophet for a very long time; and when that happens, matters only worsen. Guidance is needed; a renewal of guidance is needed if things are to be maintained; otherwise all degenerates. Such is the nature of the world: it degenerates. Five hundred years and more without a prophet there — for after ʿĪsā (peace be upon him)… there were other prophets among the Banū Isrāʾīl; but after ʿĪsā (peace be upon him) there were five hundred years and more with no prophet — and for the people of Makkah especially, who had no scripture at all. Part of their folly, then, was that they had devised all manner of notions; they had innovated them. Most of it had to do with animals. Animals were a great matter to them — as motor cars are to us, animals were to them — and a good source of food, and of good food. So they would say: these animals are for Allah only, and these for the people. Yet what was set apart for Allah they would eat themselves. They devised all these various notions.

Another of them is this, as Allah says here — from verse 136 onwards:

Of their crops and of their cattle. Since the word has now come up: anʿām, Sūrat al-Anʿām — anʿām is cattle; naʿam, anʿām: cattle. It says that these, in their opinion and by their claim, are for Allah, and these for our partners. Whatever was set apart for their ascribed partners would not go for the sake of Allah; but what was for Allah they would give. So they believed in Allah; they believed in a supreme Lord; they held only that these other idols were intermediaries. That is made plain, as the Qur'an states:

Because they could not see Allah. Yet it seems that Allah was the least present to their minds; these others were the more prominent and conspicuous. Sāʾa mā yaḥkumūn: how evil are their judgements.