Surah 26. Ash-Shuara, Ayah 74

The particle bal at the beginning of the sentence expresses astonishment. Thus, evading a direct answer to Abraham's criticism of idol-worship, his people merely stress its antiquity, forgetting - as Zamakhshari points out - that "ancient usage and precedence in time are no proof of [a concept's] soundness". Razi, for his part, states that the above verse represents "one of the strongest [Qur'anic] indications of the immorality (fasad) inherent in [the principle of] taqlid'', i.e., the blind, unquestioning adoption of religious concepts or practices on the basis of one's uncritical faith in no more than the "authority" of a scholar or religious leader.