to this very day. Yet this is something no one can possibly ascertain: at present there is no Torah, Gospel, or collection of prophetic writings of which anyone can testify that it was translated into Arabic in the era of the disciples—nor, in fact, into most other tongues. If, for argument’s sake, we imagine that the disciples really did hand those scriptures down in seventy-two languages, then, once subsequent translations were made and versions multiplied, it would have been entirely possible for alterations to enter some of them. In that case, knowing that the oldest manuscripts themselves were immune to change does not prevent tampering from affecting certain later translations or some of the copies made from them, and there is no way to establish that all those versions concur even if they do exist in seventy-two languages.

The Qur’an, by contrast, is in the Arabic language and script. It is feasible to verify the agreement of every extant copy, and it is safeguarded in people’s hearts; it has no need to rely on written preservation, for it has been conveyed by continuous, mass transmission, both orally and in writing.

The sixth point:

They say, “The Torah and the Gospel were delivered to us in our own language, as attested by the book that this man has brought.” We reply: Nothing in the Qur’an supports your claim that the Torah and the Gospel were handed over to you in your tongue. Your attempt to cite the Qur’an for this proposition is of the same kind as your citing it to prove that your religion itself is true—and of the same order as your appeal to the prophetic scriptures for the innovations and alterations with which you have tampered with the religion