—peace and blessings be upon him—just as He had sent the Messiah and other prophets. Yet Muhammad’s mission was more perfect and more comprehensive, as we shall explain in its proper place. Allah therefore instructed him to convey the message, as far as circumstances allowed, from one group to the next. He was ordered first to warn those who were closest to him in location and lineage, then to move on, community after community, until the warning reached every inhabitant of the earth.

As the Exalted One says:
“This Qur’an has been revealed to me so that I may warn you by it, and all whom it reaches” (al-Anʿām 6:19).

That is: whoever receives the Qur’an has, by that very fact, been warned by Muhammad—peace and blessings be upon him.

Here we clarify that his role as a warner was not confined to the people he addressed in person; rather, he warned them directly and likewise warned everyone to whom the Qur’an would later be conveyed. Thus Allah, blessed and exalted, first commanded him to warn his nearest kinsfolk—the clan of Quraysh—when He said:
“ And warn your nearest kinsfolk” (al-Shuʿarāʾ 26:214).

When this verse was revealed, the Prophet—peace and blessings be upon him—went to a high spot, climbed atop it, and called out:
“O sons of ʿAbd Manāf! I am a warner to you before a severe punishment. My situation in relation to you is like that of a man who sees the enemy and rushes to protect his family, fearing they will be overtaken before he reaches them; so he cries out at the top of his voice: ‘Alarm at dawn! Alarm at dawn!’”