“Give sincere counsel for Allah’s sake regarding His servants. Whoever is told of any matter concerning the Muslims yet offers no advice, Allah will forbid him Paradise. Now set out, and do not behave as the envoys of Jesus son of Mary did: they visited those who were near and neglected those who were far away, so it ended up”—meaning those envoys—“that each of them became known only in the language of the people to whom he had been sent.”

The Prophet—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—mentioned this and said, “That was the greatest right Allah, Mighty and Majestic, had over them with respect to His servants.”

Third aspect:
Among the Christians there have been many Arabs since the Prophet’s own time—peace and blessings be upon him. Anyone who understands the Arabic language can therefore understand the Quran, even if his native tongue is Persian, Byzantine (Greek), Turkish, Indian, or Coptic. The Christian scholars who dispatched this letter have read the Musḥaf and grasped from it what they could; they understand it in Arabic and have even cited Qur’anic verses as proof. How, then, can they plausibly claim, after all that, “How can the argument be established against us by a Book we did not understand?”

Fourth aspect:
The ruling applied to the People of the Book in this matter is the same as that applied to the polytheists. It is well known that among the polytheists there were Arabs as well as non-Arabs—Turks, Indians, and others.