—unlike those whose leading figures invented many of their rites.

As for the benefit people draw from these acts of worship, it is known by their fruits, their results, and their advantages—among them the way they reform the heart. Let anyone reflect on the intellects, manners, and sense of justice of the Muslims, and the difference between them and other nations will become plain.

Consider, too, the very qualities of their worship: completeness and balance are found in ritual purification, standing in ordered rows, bowing, prostrating, facing the House of Abraham—the leader of all creation—maintaining silence during the prayer, the humility it instils, the recitation of the Quran and listening to it, which to every fair-minded observer reveals the gulf between it and all other scriptures, and countless similar matters that display the superiority of the Muslims’ devotions over those of others.

Likewise, the Muslims’ application of legal penalties and the safeguarding of rights is manifestly superior to any rational person. So much so that, in certain of their own lands, the Christians appoint someone to judge between them according to the Muslims’ law whenever they have no code of their own by which people may be governed.

The Gospel, for its part, contains no comprehensive legal rulings; for the most part it enjoins renunciation of worldly things and noble character—commands that the Muslims also uphold.

We have already shown that the Muslims occupy a balanced, middle position between the Jews