Exegesis of the saying of Allah the Exalted: “They said: Glory be to You! You are our protector other than them. But they used to worship the jinn, and most of them believed in them.”

This refers to the angels, as a purification of You from having a partner. That is, we purify You from having partners, neither us nor anyone else. The purification of Allah (Glorified and Exalted is He) is from two things:
The first is deficiency.
The second is resembling the created beings. Although resembling the created beings is a form of deficiency, this is a matter of elaboration in the statement. We purify Allah from deficiency; for example, Allah the Exalted is not described as blind, deaf, weak, or powerless, or the like. We also purify Him from resembling the created beings in His attributes of perfection; thus, it is not said that His knowledge is like the knowledge of the created beings, or His face is like the face of the created beings, or His hand is like the hand of the created beings, or the like. He is purified from these two matters. Here, He is purified from having a partner, because if He had a partner, He would be deficient, since a partner is one who assists the one he partners with or owns what he owns. Allah (Glorified and Exalted is He) is purified from this. Therefore, they say, “Glory be to You,” which is a purification of You from having a partner. The author benefited us with his statement: “as a purification”. This indicates that the word is in the accusative case as an absolute noun, meaning it is always accompanied by the accusative case of the absolute object and is always attached to the genitive case. It does not occur in the genitive case unless it is in the accusative case as an absolute object. means there is no loyalty between us and them from our side. This means that this sentence is an affirmative declarative sentence; its meaning is the negative sentence, i.e., we do not take them as our protectors. Rather, You are our protector other than them, so there is no loyalty between us and them. When loyalty is negated, its opposite is established, which is enmity. That is, these are our enemies, and You are our protector other than them. This is like His saying (the Exalted): [al-Baqarah:257] for transition. means the devils, i.e., they obey them in their worship of us. are believers in what they say. for transition, because “bal” (but) comes for transitional negation. Negation means the apparent meaning. If the intention is to negate what came before and affirm what follows, the negation is abrogative. If the intention is to move from one meaning to another, higher or lower, it is called transitional negation. Here, the author says that this negation is transitional, meaning they did not negate what came before; they remain with their statement: and there is no loyalty between us and them, we do not take them as our protectors, and they do not take us as their protectors. Rather, we add to that: and what is meant by here are the devils, because the jinn are the devils in reality. Allah the Exalted said: [al-Kahf:50] So they worship the jinn. Why? If the intended meaning is...
If they were worshipping the angels, what is the apparent context? How is their worship of the jinn here? Their worship of the jinn is worship of obedience, meaning they obey them in associating partners with Allah. The jinn command them to make the angels partners with Allah in worship, and they obey them. Whoever obeys other than Allah in disobeying Allah has taken him as a god. Allah the Exalted said: [al-Tawbah:31] It was narrated that when they made lawful what Allah had forbidden, they made it lawful, and when they made forbidden what Allah had made lawful, they made it forbidden. Thus, they made them a god alongside Allah (Glorified and Exalted is He) in making things lawful and forbidden and in obedience. So the meaning of His saying: is that they obey them in the worship of whom? In the worship of the angels. Whoever obeys other than Allah in disobeying Allah has taken him as a god. are believers in them. He said: and did not say “all of them,” even though all of them worship the angels in obedience to the jinn. Why did they express it by saying “most of them” and not “all of them”? The answer to this is that these polytheists are divided into two groups:
One group: the general followers. The general followers do not know anything; they found their fathers on a religion, so they followed it.
The other group: meaning... they know the matter, but they believe in these jinn, believe in them, and disbelieve in the messengers. These are the majority. However, the followers, who are the first group, if the truth becomes clear to them and they persist in following these people and say as the nations said: [al-Zukhruf:22] then they are deserving of punishment, because they disbelieved with full knowledge.