and the Magians and every other category of unbeliever—and all of this happened at his hands and at the hands of his community, not at the hands of the Jews or the Christians. Even if one were to suppose that the law revealed to those earlier peoples had remained intact and unchanged, it would still have been overcome and subdued, for Allah had already sent someone to support His religion and make it prevail; how much more so now that it has in fact been altered? And even had it not been distorted, the religion of Aḥmad is more complete and more excellent than it. That religion, then, is both altered and inferior, whereas this one is unaltered and superior; that one is defeated and overwhelmed, while this one is divinely supported and victorious. From only a part of this the benefit of his being sent becomes plain. Indeed, one of the greatest of benefits was the mission of Muḥammad—peace and blessings be upon him—so how can anyone claim that there was no benefit in his being sent?

Eleventh Point

They say: “Since the Creator is just and generous, it was necessary for Him to manifest His justice and generosity.”

We reply: The generosity of the Generous One does not lie in forcing people to relinquish their rights. A generous person is the one who does good to others, not the one who compels them to forgo what is due to them. Yet these people allege that the Gospel’s law obliged people to abandon their rights and that the wronged person may never obtain redress from the wrongdoer. For that reason they have no just code by which they may judge between people. Their judgments fall into only two categories: the ruling of the Church, in which no vindication is given to the oppressed against the oppressor; and the ruling of kings, which is not a revealed law at all but merely follows the kings’ own opinions. Hence you will find them referring cases of bloodshed back to the rulings of Islamic law.