The first response to a claim of shirk is to demand evidence for it. If a creature is said to possess a divine prerogative independently, what warrants that assertion?
The argument also challenges uncritical reliance on ancestral practice. Respect for one’s predecessors is one matter; treating their conduct as self-sufficient proof for a contradictory claim is another.
Applied example: “We believe this because our ancestors did it” identifies a historical transmission, but it does not establish theological truth. An inherited practice needs justification beyond the bare fact of inheritance.
The same method matters when analogous claims appear in later periods: honoring a revered person is not equivalent to assigning that person autonomous divine power.