and have adopted the opinions of people who offered you interpretations, despite your knowing that they too differed in opinion. Each faction then proclaimed about the Messiah whatever it fancied, and every statement in turn attracted a following that echoed it. Those who came later merely trod the path of their forefathers, content to imitate them.

So present to us your proof for all this—though how distant any genuine proof is!—and we beseech Allah to safeguard us from error and to grant us His success.

He said: Among the passages that parallel what has already been cited is his word to his disciples in the Gospel of Luke, 55:

“Yet you who have stood by me in my trials, I bequeath to you—just as my Father has bequeathed to me—the kingdom, so that you may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom.”

He thus made plain that Allah—exalted be His praise—promised to place him in the heavenly kingdom, eating and drinking with his disciples at his table. This is something you yourselves do not doubt, yet it runs counter to your claim about what ultimately becomes of him, as well as to your position on eating and drinking.