—namely, that the truth-speaking, wholly trustworthy Prophet openly branded them both as impostors, and by the further proofs of their deceit that later became evident. These included the fabricated reports they spread that flatly contradict genuine prophethood, and their production of a forged “Qur’an” that anyone who heard it knew could never have been uttered by Allah but was no more than a human composition—just as Abu Bakr al-Siddiq said to them when they repented of their apostasy and returned to Islam:

“Let me hear Musaylima’s ‘Qur’an.’” When they recited it to him he exclaimed, “Woe to you! Where have your minds gone? This is speech that has not come from any deity!”

Further evidence was the immorality and lying he himself committed and enjoined; the fact that those closest to him knew perfectly well that he fabricated falsehoods and even enlisted others to invent them for him; and his repeated promises that Gabriel had informed him he would be granted victory—only for him, when reality set in, to tell them, “There is no Gabriel for you; fight to defend the honor of your lineage.” Such matters, and many like them, all point unmistakably to the impostor’s falsehood.