Deification
\r\n Al-Ankabut (The Spider) Chapter 29: Verse 17 (partial)
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"You worship only idols instead of God, and thus you invent a mere falsehood. Surely those that you worship instead of God do not have power to provide for you ..."
The pronoun used in the verse and translated as those is the pronoun used for living beings. So this shows that, as in all the polytheistic societies, the idols or statues usually represented some beings whom people respected and then exalted and deified, such as angels, the jinns, Prophets, heroes, or statesmen. The Prophet Abraham (upon him be peace) meant both those beings represented by idols and the idols themselves. Later generations began to forget the beings whose statues were made for deification, and rather came to deify and worship the statues themselves. However, besides some beings, people would personify many powers or things, such as spirits and "forces of nature," and attribute God's power or acts to many false deities or adopt many deities, to each of which they would assign a Divine act or power. We should note that paganism or idolworship has not ceased. It continues in many explicit or implicit forms.
\r\nCompiled From:
\r\n "The Quran: Annotated Interpretation in Modern English" - Ali Unal, pp. 823, 824