Section: A rebuttal of their claim that the messengers God sent to them make them independent of the message of Muhammad—may blessings and peace be upon him.

As for their assertion: “We are under no obligation to follow him, because messengers came to us before him, addressed us in our own tongues, warned us according to the religion to which we still adhere today, and handed down to us the Torah and the Gospel in our language. The very book brought by this man testifies to that, for it declares in the chapter of Ibrahim, ‘We never sent a messenger except in the language of his people’ (Ibrahim 14:4). And it says in the chapter of al-Nahl, ‘We certainly sent a messenger to every nation’ (al-Nahl 16:36).”

The reply has several layers.

First: The fact that a messenger was sent to you before him does not preclude the coming of a second messenger. God sent Moses, peace be upon him, to the Children of Israel, who then followed the revealed law of the Torah. Thereafter the Blessed and Exalted sent Christ, peace be upon him, to them, and it became mandatory for them to believe in him; whoever refused was a disbeliever—even if he maintained that