So why did they not help them, by averting from them the chastisement, those whom they had chosen besides God, that is to say, other than Him, as [a means of] nearness, through whom they may secure nearness to God, to be gods?, alongside Him, and these are the idols (the first object of ittakhadhū, ‘they had chosen’, is the omitted pronoun referred to by the relative clause [alladhīna, ‘those who …’], and it is hum, ‘they’; qurbānan, ‘nearness’, is the second [object], with ālihatan, ‘gods’, as its substitution). Nay, but they forsook them, when the chastisement came down [on them], and that, that is to say, [that] choosing of theirs of idols as gods as a means of nearness [to God], was their lie and what they used to invent — the lies they used to speak (mā, ‘what’, either relates to the verbal action [‘their lying’], or it indicates a relative clause with the referential pronoun omitted, this being fīhi, ‘about’).