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wa-qālū law shāʾa r-raḥmānu mā ʿabadnāhum mā lahum bi-dhālika min ʿilmin ʾin hum ʾillā yakhruṣūna
They say, ‘Had the All-beneficent wished, we would not have worshipped them.’ They do not have any knowledge of that, and they do nothing but surmise.
— Ali Quli Qarai
Surah al-Zukhruf - Verse 20
20. And they said: “If it had been the Will of the Most Gracious [Allah], we should not have worshipped them.” They have no knowledge [nor scientific reason] whatsoever of that. They say nothing but out of conjecture and supposition.
Wrong doers make attempts at justification of their acts and take advantage of Divine Will as their pretext. The word yakhrusun derives from khars which is employed in the sense of words based on conjecture and supposition. Words having no basis on knowledge, particularly those concerning dogmatic issues, are not to be acknowledged. Consequently, the blessed Verse in question says that had the Most Gracious Lord willed, we would not have worshipped idols and false deities; thereby, they made attempts at exonerate themselves of sins saying that it had been Divine Will that they worshipped deities besides Allah.
The blessed Verse is a reply to them to the effect that such words, like other baseless words uttered by them, indicate their ignorance and illogicality. They are liars since they utter untrue words since God Almighty never wills the disbelief of disbelievers as it is reflected in the Holy Qur’an:
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