“Have they any God beside God? Glory be to God above what they join with Him.”
But they are, in a later Sūrah (nearly the last), [ix. 28], declared unclean, and forbidden to enter the sacred temple at Makkah. That was after Muḥammad had destroyed the idols in his last pilgrimage to the Sacred House.
“O Believers! only they who join gods with God are unclean! Let them not, therefore, after this their year, come near the sacred temple. And if ye fear want, God, if He please, will enrich you of His abundance: for God is Knowing, Wise.”
In a Sūrah given about the same time ([iv. 51], [116]), idolatry is declared to be the unpardonable sin:—
“Verily, God will not forgive the union of other gods with Himself! But other than this will He forgive to whom He pleaseth. And he who uniteth gods with God hath devised a great wickedness.”
“God truly will not forgive the joining other gods with Himself. Other sins He will forgive to whom He will: but he who joineth gods with God, hath erred with far-gone error.”
Nor is it lawful for Muslims to pray for the souls of idolaters, as is evident from [Sūrah ix. 114]:—
“It is not for the prophet or the faithful to pray for the forgiveness of those, even though they be of kin, who associate other beings with God, after it hath been made clear to them that they are to be the inmates of Hell.
“For neither did Abraham ask forgiveness for his father, but in pursuance of a promise which he had promised to him: but when it was shewn him that he was an enemy to God, he declared himself clear of him. Yet Abraham was pitiful, kind.”
Sir William Muir says (Int. p. ccxii.) that “Mahomet is related to have said that Amr son of Lohai (the first Khozaite king, A.D. 200) was the earliest who dared to change the ‘pure religion of Ishmael,’ and set up idols brought from Syria. This, however, is a mere Muslim conceit. The practice of idolatry thickly overspread the whole peninsula from a much more remote period.”