Many tales of this sort are circulated about certain prophets, or about some scholars and devoted worshippers—stories that form no part of Allah’s revealed law. A number of people believe them, and they become a temptation for two groups that accept them. One group reviles the prophet or righteous man in question for things of which he is completely innocent, while the other proclaims that it is merely following him in what he supposedly said.

This phenomenon is found in much of what the People of the Book narrate about the prophets: the Jews report matters that undermine the prophets’ claim to revelation, and the Christians take those very reports as precedents for the innovations they invent. A detailed treatment of this appears elsewhere. What concerns us here is that every description applied to the Messiah—whether earlier prophets described him that way or he spoke of himself in those terms—has its parallel in the case of others. Yet none of them thereby became both lāhūt (divinity) and nāsūt (humanity), nor did the lāhūt fuse with the nāsūt. No one on that account deserved to be worshipped, to have prayer and prostration directed to him, to be invoked as Allah is invoked, or to be credited with the prerogatives that belong to Allah alone—creation, resurrection, reward, and punishment.

Indeed, the Messiah—may Allah’s blessings be upon him—was not given a single extraordinary sign without someone else receiving one like it, or greater; nor was any statement made about him without a comparable—or stronger—statement being made about another, apart from what the Qur’an has singled out as his unique distinction.