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Lit., "they attribute to Him partners with regard to that which He has granted them": i.e., many of them look upon the contributing factors of sound childbirth (like personal care during pregnancy, medical assistance, eugenics, etc.) as something independent of God, forgetting that all these contributing factors are - like the birth of the child itself - but an outcome of God's will and grace: a manifestation of what the Qur'an calls "the way of God" (sunnat Allah). Since this kind of mental association of "other" factors with God is not really intentional, it does not amount to the unforgivable sin of shirk ("the ascribing of divine qualities to powers other than God"); but it is close enough to it to warrant the subsequent discourse on shirk in the real meaning of this term.
When the child is born, the parents forget that it is a precious gift of Allah,-a miracle of Creation, which should lift their minds up to the higher things of Allah. Instead, their gradual familiarity with the new life makes them connect it with many superstitious ideas or rites and ceremonies, or they take it as a matter of course, is a little plaything of the material world. This leads to idolatry or false worship, or the selling up of false standards, in derogation of the dignity of Allah.