this great city; I will strike them all and starve them, even though they are perfectly able to lodge a complaint with Allah or with the ruler—yet, for all that, not one of them does so. Such an outcome would be among the most astonishing marvels that overturn the established order of things.

Likewise, imagine that a single person were to compose a book which his peers were fully capable of matching, or to recite poetry that others of equal talent could readily equal, and then he challenged everyone, declaring, “Match what I have produced; and if you fail to do so, you are unbelievers whose abode is the Fire, and your blood is lawful to me.” In the normal course of affairs it would be impossible for no one to respond to him; should they remain silent, that silence itself would constitute one of the most extraordinary wonders defying custom.

Now, the one who brought the Qur’an said to all people: “I am Allah’s Messenger to you all. Whoever believes in me will enter Paradise, and whoever disbelieves in me will enter the Fire. It has been made lawful for me to kill your men, take your offspring captive, and seize your wealth as booty. Obedience to me is incumbent upon every one of you, and whoever refuses is among the most wretched of creation. One of the signs attesting to my claim is this Qur’an, for no one is able to produce anything like it, and I tell you decisively that no one ever will.”

We must therefore conclude that people are either able to confront it or unable to do so. If they were able and yet did not confront it—because Allah turned the impulses of their hearts away and prevented them, despite this emphatic challenge, from even wanting to oppose it, or because He stripped them of the very capacity they had possessed before the challenge—then divesting them of their customary ability would be tantamount to someone saying: