Logic For Islamic Rules

Why Would the False Gods Be Put in the Fire?

Question: In Surah Anbiya, Verse no. 98, it is said regarding those gods whom the polytheist worshipped:

Surely you and what you worship besides Allah are the firewood of hell, to it you shall come.

On this basis the false gods will burn in the fire of hell, whereas the connection of some false gods is with the living things. (For example, the animals whom the ignorant communities worshipped). What is their sin that they be burnt in fire?

Answer: As the venerable Shia Mufasser late Tabarsi has said in his famous Tafseer Majmaul Bayan, this verse is addressed to the country of polytheists. And all the Verses of Surah Anbiya were revealed in Makkah. The false gods of the people of Makkah were made of wood, metal and stone. And those gods which are the firewood of Hell, they are these idols, etc, whom at the time of revelation of Quran, people used to worship, those living gods are not included in this Verse whom some people worshipped. It is also interesting that in those days the idol worshippers of the Arabian peninsula were not worshipping any living things.

Here the point worth attention is that Allah will burn those false gods in hell and they will become firewood for hell, so that the polytheist may know that those false gods who were sacred in their eyes in the end became fire for their own lives and they became the cause of their misfortune and

 wretchedness. And they get to know that these false gods whom the foolish man considered to be powerful do not even have a little power to defend themselves.