فَجَعَلَهُمْ جُذَٰذًا إِلَّا كَبِيرًا لَّهُمْ لَعَلَّهُمْ إِلَيْهِ يَرْجِعُونَ
37:94.
Important Words:
جذاذاً (pieces) is inf. noun from جذ. They say, جذہ i.e. he cut it and broke it into pieces. جذ فی سیرہ means, he walked quickly (Lane).
Commentary:
The pronoun ہ in the expression الیه may refer either to God, or to the chief idol or to Abraham himself. As referring to Abraham, the meaning of the verse would be that he broke all the idols except the chief among them so that his people should have recourse to him to ask him who had broken their idols and that when they should come to him he should tell them that instead of inquiring from him they should put the same question to their chief idol. This was a very effective and forcible way of bringing home to the idolaters the futility of worshipping mere lifeless blocks of wood or stone.
If the pronoun ہ be taken to refer to God, then the meaning would be that Abraham broke the idols of his people so that when they should see them broken into pieces they should realize their complete powerlessness and uselessness and so turn to God.
It may be noted here that the idols belonged to Abraham’s own family. Otherwise it was not right and proper for him to break other people’s idols.