be foretold by the prophets, for those very prophets foretold the rise of the impostor Messiah, the Dajjal, so as to warn mankind—even though the Dajjal’s reign will be brief. If, then, what the denier of Muhammad claims were true—namely, that he is a liar and not a messenger—his trial would surpass the trial of the Dajjal in many respects, because the people who have followed him are many times more numerous than those who will follow the Dajjal. Were he a fabricator, the number of people seduced by him would vastly exceed those who will be seduced by the Dajjal, and a warning against him would therefore have been more imperative than the warning against the Dajjal. From the time of Adam to the present day no impostor has ever appeared and endured with such longevity; how, then, could the prophets have neglected to caution against someone like this if he were indeed a liar?

But if he is truthful, then the glad tidings of believing in him are the foremost future event about which the prophets should have brought good news and information. It necessarily follows that the scriptures must contain mention of him. In fact, many passages—more than one hundred—have been identified in the revealed books that scholars cite as proof that he is indeed recorded there. Continuous testimony from large numbers of the People of the Scripture confirms that he appears in their books, and equally widespread reports from many who embraced Islam state that their knowledge of this mention was the very cause—or one of the greatest causes—of their acceptance of Islam: either because they themselves found his description in the scriptures, as happened with many converts both early and late, or because of trustworthy reports they received from the People of the Scripture, such as the Helpers (al-Ansar), for whom this was among the strongest motives