Accordingly, every truth to which this Messenger and this Qur’an summon is an established, enduring reality, beneficial to all people. No future discovery can overturn it, and it is impossible that anything more upright, equal to it, or even close to it should ever appear—“Who is better in judgment than Allah for a people who are certain?” (al-Mā’idah 5:50).

From the perfection of His knowledge and power is that, had anyone dared to invent such a claim about Him, He would have hastened to punish him. Instead, He supported the one who brought the message with His own aid and with decisive proofs, and He showed His servants signs on the horizons and within themselves by which it becomes clear that it is the truth and that whatever opposes it is sheer falsehood. This makes it plain that the Prophet is the most truthful, sincere, benevolent, knowledgeable, reverent, and devout of all creation, while his deniers are the most mendacious and deceitful of people, and the most ignorant, misguided, depraved, and corrupt in every age and place.

The obstinacy of the Prophet’s enemies is also evident in the contradictions of their own statements and the variety of their transparent fabrications. Some said, “He is insane.” Others said, “He is a sorcerer and a soothsayer.” Still others claimed, “He is bewitched.” Yet others protested, “If he were truthful, the angels would have come to support him; and if he were truthful, Allah would spare him from walking in the markets and would grant him gardens, rivers, and great wealth!”

Everyone knows that such assertions—contradictory as they are—do not even qualify as plausible doubts, let alone sound arguments. Hence Allah says in amazement, “Look how they coin comparisons for you, and so they go astray and cannot find a way” (al-Furqān 25:9).

These very statements that Allah cites from those who denied the Messenger carry within themselves clear evidence of their falsehood and stubbornness even before other proofs expose their futility. Weigh them against the accusations voiced by the earliest detractors and you will find identical—and even uglier—claims repeated by later atheists. “Yet Allah refuses except to perfect His light, even though the disbelievers detest it. He is the One who has sent His Messenger with guidance and the religion of truth so that He may make it prevail over every other religion, even though the polytheists loathe it” (al-Tawbah 9:32–33).