And thus in the same way that what is mentioned was adorned for them those associates of theirs from among the jinn have adorned for many of the idolaters the slaying of their children by burying them alive shurakā’uhum ‘those associates of theirs’ is read in the nominative as the subject of the verb zayyana ‘adorned’; an alternative reading has the passive zuyyina ‘it has been adorned’ with qatlu ‘the slaying’ in the nominative as the subject of this passive verb awlādahum ‘their children’ in the accusative on account of it being the direct object of qatlu ‘the slaying’ and shurakā’ihim in the genitive as an annexation to qatlu so that the object in this case intervenes between the two elements of the annexation qatlu awlādahum shurakā’ihim ‘their associates killing the children’ — this is acceptable syntactically — and the annexation of qatlu to shurakā’ihim in this latter reading is on account of them the associates commanding the idolaters to do this that they may destroy them and to confuse to make obscure their religion for them. Had God willed they would not have done so; so leave them and that which they fabricate.
