in Mecca, where there was not a single scholar from the People of the Book—neither Jew nor Christian. Later he migrated to Medina, where a great number of Jews lived—Banu Qaynuqaʿ, Banu al-Nadir, and Banu Qurayzah—who perhaps made up about half the city’s population, or a little less or more. They too would ask him about matters of the unseen that only a prophet could know, and he would inform them of such things. He would recite to them the unseen matters about which the idolaters had questioned him and the answers he had given, and he would recite to them this unseen knowledge that Allah had revealed to him, explaining that it was Allah who had taught him and that no human being had instructed him. As a result, a group from among the People of the Book believed in him, while another group disbelieved.

Yet in neither group was there anyone who said, “He learned this from us, or from our brethren or our peers,” nor, “You have read it in our books.” Had he really acquired that knowledge from them, his teachers would have been from among them; and if their elders had known that he was lying and had learned it from them, they would have refused to affirm him either inwardly or outwardly. Rather, their commitment to the first Scripture, and their awareness that anyone who, after studying under them, claimed the revelation of a second Scripture must be lying, would have driven them to lay bare his affair, expose his falsehood, and tell the people, “He studied with us; we are the ones who told him this”—all the more so given what he had done to the Jews by way of killing, siege, expulsion, captivity, and the like.

Had such a thing actually occurred, it would have been among the most eagerly transmitted reports, related by both supporter and opponent alike. Since, however, no one ever said any such thing, and no one ever transmitted it—despite the abundant, recurrent reports that were known to both the elite and the common folk,