وَيَعْبُدُونَ مِن دُونِ ٱللَّهِ مَا لَا يَمْلِكُ لَهُمْ رِزْقًا مِّنَ ٱلسَّمَٰوَٰتِ وَٱلْأَرْضِ شَيْـًٔا وَلَا يَسْتَطِيعُونَ · فَلَا تَضْرِبُوا۟ لِلَّهِ ٱلْأَمْثَالَ إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ يَعْلَمُ وَأَنتُمْ لَا تَعْلَمُونَ
Wa yaʿbudūna min dūni'llāhi mā lā yamliku lahum rizqan mina'l-samāwāti wa'l-arḍi shayʾan wa lā yastaṭīʿūn · Fa-lā taḍribū li'llāhi'l-amthāl, inna'llāha yaʿlamu wa antum lā taʿlamūn
"And they serve, besides God, things that hold no provision for them from the heavens or the earth, and have no power to. · So do not coin likenesses for God. God knows, and you do not know."
This verse must be read with care, because immediately afterwards the sūra will give two parables (75-76).
What is forbidden is not the making of parables; it is the coining of likenesses for God — that is, the attempt to describe Him by a comparison, to fit Him into a mould.
And the evidence for this is what comes two verses later: ḍaraba'llāhu mathalan — "God has coined a likeness." Coining a likeness is not forbidden; coining one about God is.
I record this as my own reading, and its ground is that these verses stand back to back: the verse marks in advance by whom the parables of the seventy-fifth and seventy-sixth verses are framed. When the agent changes, the ruling changes too.
The same principle was recorded at al-Rūm, 30/27 (wa lahu'l-mathalu'l-aʿlā fi'l-samāwāti wa'l-arḍ), and the same construction occurred in the sixtieth verse of this sūra (wa li'llāhi'l-mathalu'l-aʿlā). This is a repetition verifiable within the sūra.