that there has come to light among the People of the Book what has not appeared to the shaykhs of these dialecticians. They even forbid the disclosure of Allah’s signs and proofs—though these are the very things their own masters most earnestly seek—yet they have failed to give those proofs their due, whether out of sheer inability or through negligence.

Eighth Consideration: Many among the People of the Book contend that Muhammad—peace and blessings be upon him—and his community established their religion by the sword rather than through guidance, knowledge, and manifest signs. When they ask for knowledge and debate and are told, “Your only answer is the sword,” such a reply merely confirms their false suspicion. It then becomes, in their own eyes, the weightiest argument that Islam is unsound, that it is not the religion of a Messenger sent by Allah, but the creed of a ruler who imposed it by force.