Ghafir • EN-TAFSIR-MAARIF-UL-QURAN
﴿ مِن دُونِ ٱللَّهِ ۖ قَالُوا۟ ضَلُّوا۟ عَنَّا بَل لَّمْ نَكُن نَّدْعُوا۟ مِن قَبْلُ شَيْـًۭٔا ۚ كَذَٰلِكَ يُضِلُّ ٱللَّهُ ٱلْكَٰفِرِينَ ﴾
“side by side with God?” They will answer: “They have forsaken us - or, rather, what we were wont to invoke aforetime did not exist at all!” And they will be told:] “It is thus that God lets the deniers of the truth go astray:”
In verse 74, it was said: قَالُوا ضَلُّوا عَنَّا (They will say, "They are lost to us,...), that is, once they reach Jahannam, the disbelievers will say that all those idols and shaitans they used to worship have disappeared in the sense that they do not see them around, though, they might as well be lying somewhere in a corner of Jahannam, as their being in Jahannam stands proved from other verses of the Qur'an, for instance: إِنَّكُمْ وَمَا تَعْبُدُونَ مِن دُونِ اللَّـهِ حَصَبُ جَهَنَّمَ , (Surely, you and whatever you worship other than Allah are the fuel for Jahannam - Al-Anbiya', 21:98)