And the Christians themselves acknowledge, as this patriarch has recorded, that the first ruler to make the Christian religion publicly dominant was Constantine, more than three hundred years after the Messiah. That is half of the interval that separated the Messiah from Muhammad—peace and blessings be upon them both—for that span was six hundred, or six hundred and twenty, years.

Now, if the Christians admit that the creed they follow was fashioned by one faction among them, while others opposed it, and that it is not transmitted from the Messiah; and if they likewise concede that their permitting what Allah and His Messenger had forbidden, their fighting anyone who rejects their religion, and even killing those who prohibit pork—despite the Gospel’s law running contrary to all of this—as well as their abandonment of circumcision and their veneration of the cross, all stem from that same faction,

then the basis they cite for this is that Constantine saw an image of a cross formed of stars. Yet it is obvious that such a vision cannot serve as the foundation for a religious law. Similar—and far more striking—apparitions occur to idol-worshippers devoted to statues and heavenly bodies; it was through such spectacles that the religion of the messengers was altered, people associated partners with their Lord, and idols came to be worshipped, for Satan can conjure up these illusions and greater ones besides.

The same applies to the cloak (izār) someone claimed to have seen, or the voice he said he heard. Can any rational person change Allah’s law, with which His messengers were sent, on the basis of a voice or a vision of this sort, when the polytheists who worship stars and idols experience things even more impressive?

Moreover, even what they attribute to Peter, the chief of the disciples, contains no