benefit in this: once a person dies, he inevitably comes to believe in the unseen realities he had denied during life, so this experience is not peculiar to the Messiah alone. Moreover, the verse says “before his death,” not “after his death.” There is likewise no distinction between believing in the Messiah and believing in Muhammad—may Allah’s blessings and peace be upon them both—for a Jew who dies adhering to Judaism dies a disbeliever in both Muhammad and the Messiah, peace and blessings be upon them.

The Exalted also says: “There is none of the People of the Book but will surely believe in him before his death” (al-Nisāʾ 4:159). The clause “will surely believe in him” is an emphatic future construction introduced by an oath, which shows that the belief in question is to occur in the future, after Allah has informed us of it. Had the verse intended “before the death of the individual from the People of the Book,” it would have read: “None of the People of the Book except whoever believes in him,” and would not have used the emphatic future form “will surely believe in him.”

Furthermore, the phrase “There is none of the People of the Book” embraces both Jews and Christians. This indicates that all of them—Jews and Christians alike—will believe in the Messiah before the Messiah’s own death. When he descends, they will acknowledge that he is a messenger of Allah: neither a liar, as the Jews claim, nor God, as the Christians assert.

Preserving this universal sense of the verse is preferable to claiming that every individual from the People of the Book will necessarily believe in him before that individual dies, for such a claim would require that every single Jew