2/170-171 — The forefathers and the shepherd's voice
"When they are told 'follow what God has sent down', they say, 'No, we follow what we found our forefathers upon'. Even if their forefathers understood nothing and were not on the right way?"
The objection advances no proof; it advances a continuity. Not "it is true" but "this is how we came".
The verse's answer is likewise not a counter-claim but a question: and what if they did not know either? The question shows that a tradition is not self-verifying. That a practice is old is no proof that it is right — because what is wrong can also grow old.
Care is needed here: the verse does not reject tradition, it rejects tradition's being counted beyond question. Indeed the same Qurʾān praises attachment to the inheritance of Abraham and commands following the chain of prophets. The difference is this: the reason for following that chain is not that it is old but that it is right. The measure stays the same; what changes is where the measure is applied.
The comparison: "The case of those who cover over is like the case of one who calls out to animals that hear nothing but a shout and a cry."
The picture is this: a shepherd calls to the flock. The sound reaches the animal — the ear is sound, the sound has been heard. But what reaches it is only the sound; not the meaning inside it.
This comes out at the same place as the tableau "deaf, dumb, blind" at verse 18 of the sūra: the organs work, the function is missing. And the detail here is sharper — the trouble is not not hearing but not understanding what is heard.