Section: A Rebuttal of Their Claim that Islam Exalts Their Places of Worship

They argue, “We also find that Islam venerates our Gospel, gives precedence to our monasteries, honors our churches, and testifies that the name of Allah is invoked therein in great abundance, as in His words—Exalted be He:

‘Were it not that Allah repels people, some by means of others, monasteries, churches, synagogues, and mosques—wherein the name of Allah is mentioned frequently—would have been demolished.’ [al-Ḥajj 40]

The response is as follows. The verse does indeed mention monasteries and churches, yet His statement, ‘wherein the name of Allah is mentioned frequently,’ comes immediately after He has mentioned mosques, and mosques belong to the Muslims; they are not the Christians’ churches, for those are what He has already called ‘churches’ (biyaʿ). Therefore, His words ‘wherein the name of Allah is mentioned frequently’ are either restricted to the mosques alone—-in which case the verse is not informing us that Allah’s name is constantly invoked in churches and monasteries—or the mention is to be taken as applying to all of them together. If the latter is intended, there is no doubt that, before Allah sent Muhammad—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—those monasteries and churches contained people who still followed the unaltered religion of Jesus, and in them the name of Allah was indeed invoked often. Some have also said that, after abrogation and alteration