contradictory; rather, he states: “I acknowledged the debt, then I paid it back to you, and you yourself acknowledge having received the payment—your acknowledgment is written on the reverse of the document. You therefore have no right to invoke my admission of the debt while disregarding your own admission of payment. Either you treat both admissions recorded in the deed—mine and yours—as binding, or you invalidate the two opposing claims together.”

Such reasoning is equitable, just like two mutually authorized partners—partners in an ʿinān-type venture—when one says to the other, “If profit is realized, it belongs to both of us; if no profit is realized, neither of us receives anything.”

The same applies to a seller or a lessor who says, “If there is an exchange between us, then you must deliver what I have offered, and I must deliver what you have offered; one side is due only in consideration of the other.” All of this is fair speech and balanced justice.

It is quite different, however, when someone is claimed to be “the Messenger of Allah,” or when a given book is claimed to be “the Word of Allah, which He has sent down.” If the claimant is a truthful messenger, then everything he conveys from Allah is true; but if he is a liar, Allah did not send him at all, and everything he attributes to Allah is sheer fabrication. Consequently, on the mere basis of his report nothing may be ascribed to Allah, nor may anything he relates from Allah be taken as authoritative proof in any matter.

Do you not see that when a man alleges prophethood yet is known to be lying—such as al-Aswad al-ʿAnsī—