Surah Hud (Hud) 11 : 19

Explanatory Note

They do not wish to act with honesty and sincerity. They do not like to behave in a straightforward manner. They prefer crookedness and deviousness. The pronoun ‘it’ used here refers to either the path of God or to life generally. The truth about them is emphasized, for they are those ‘who deny the life to come.’ The Arabic expression here is much more emphatic, so that the enormity of their crime is portrayed in sharp relief.

Those who ascribe partners to God (limitless is He in His glory) are the wrongdoers who, indeed, wish all life to be crooked. For they deliberately take themselves away from the straightforward and honest path of Islam. Submission to any deity other than God can only bring about crookedness in every aspect of human existence. When people submit themselves to deities other than God Almighty, they bring humiliation into their own lives, whereas God wants them to enjoy dignity. They perpetrate injustice and oppression while God wants life to be based on justice and fair play. They also waste their own efforts as they try to make their own deities look big and blow up their images so that they can fill the place which belongs to God alone.