At every moment there appeared through his hands extraordinary signs and many kinds of miracles whose description would be endless. He told them of what had passed and what was yet to come, enjoined what is right and forbade what is wrong, made the wholesome things lawful for them and declared the vile things unlawful, and instituted the divine law step by step until Allah perfected the religion with which he had been sent. His sharia thus emerged as the most complete of all laws: no recognized virtue that sound intellect acknowledges as such remained without his commanding it, and no recognized vice that sound intellect censures remained without his prohibiting it. He never commanded anything of which one could say, “If only he had not commanded it,” nor did he forbid anything of which one could say, “If only he had not forbidden it.” He permitted all wholesome things, not proscribing any of them as had been done in other dispensations, and he prohibited all harmful things, not allowing any of them as others had allowed. He gathered within his law the finest qualities possessed by past nations; there is no report concerning Allah, His angels, or the Last Day mentioned in the Torah, the Gospel, or the Psalms except that he conveyed it in the most perfect manner—and he informed of matters not found in those scriptures at all.

Thus, there is no scriptural injunction to justice, no ruling grounded in generosity, no exhortation to virtue, and no encouragement toward good deeds contained in the previous books except that he brought it—and something even better. When the discerning observer examines the acts of worship he legislated and compares them with the worship of other communities, their superiority and pre-eminence become manifest; the same holds true for the prescribed penalties, rulings, and every other branch of the law. His community is the most perfect of nations in every virtue: if their knowledge is weighed against that of other peoples, the excellence of their knowledge becomes evident; and if their religion, acts of worship, and obedience to Allah are compared—