from the crowd, for the people regarded him as a prophet.

The Gospel also recounts that the mother of Zebedee’s two sons—herself one of his disciples—came to him with her sons. He said to her,

“What do you want?”
She replied, “I want my two sons: let one of them sit at your right hand and the other at your left in your kingdom.”
He said, “That cannot be; it is not mine to grant. It shall be given only to those to whom it has been promised by my Father.”

Al-Hasan b. Ayyub said: O people, what could be more eloquent, clearer, and more conclusive than the convergence of these proofs in your own books? Yet you have been satisfied neither with what he said about himself, nor with what his disciples said about him, nor with the testimony of the prophets who foretold him, nor with the statement of the crowds who followed him when their opponents asked them about him—you have abandoned all of that,