يَدْعُوا۟ مِن دُونِ ٱللَّهِ مَا لَا يَضُرُّهُۥ وَمَا لَا يَنفَعُهُۥ · يَدْعُوا۟ لَمَن ضَرُّهُۥٓ أَقْرَبُ مِن نَّفْعِهِۦ لَبِئْسَ ٱلْمَوْلَىٰ وَلَبِئْسَ ٱلْعَشِيرُ
Yadʿū min dūni'llāhi mā lā yaḍurruhu wa mā lā yanfaʿuh · Dhālika huwa'ḍ-ḍalālu'l-baʿīd · Yadʿū la-man ḍarruhu aqrabu min nafʿih · La-biʾsa'l-mawlā wa la-biʾsa'l-ʿashīr
"He calls, besides God, upon what can neither harm him nor benefit him. That is the far straying. He calls upon one whose harm is nearer than his benefit. What a wretched protector, what a wretched companion!"
The twelfth and thirteenth verses open with the same verb (yadʿū) but say two separate things. The difference must be recorded:
| Verse | The ruling |
|---|---|
| 12 | What is called upon can give neither harm nor benefit — it is wholly without effect |
| 13 | The harm of what is called upon is nearer than its benefit — not without effect, but effective in the other direction |
This is not a contradiction but a gradation, and I record it as an observation about word order: the first verse describes the object itself — it has no power of its own. The second describes the outcome of the relationship — the man who enters that relationship is harmed.
The harm therefore comes not from the object but from the attachment. The object is without effect; attaching oneself to it is not without effect.
أَقْرَبُ — "nearer". The choice of word is worth recording: the verse does not say its harm is greater than its benefit, it says it is nearer. The comparison is made not by quantity but by distance.
| Word | Root | What it conveys |
|---|---|---|
| مَوْلَىٰ | و-ل-ي | Nearness, guardianship — one who protects, who sees to a man's affairs |
| عَشِير | ع-ش-ر | One who lives alongside — muʿāshara, ʿashīra are of the same root; one who shares the daily round |
The two are two separate kinds of relation: one vertical (protection, taking charge), the other horizontal (companionship, being together). The verse negates both.
And a link to the end of the sūra must be drawn: the seventy-eighth verse will close huwa mawlākum fa-niʿma'l-mawlā. The same word stands at the two ends of the sūra: here la-biʾsa'l-mawlā, there niʿma'l-mawlā. This is a contrast that can be verified from the text.