Section: Clarifying the Claim and the Rebuttal

Their Claim That the Messenger Was Sent Only to the Pagan Arabs of the Age of Ignorance

Once this has been established, these people maintain in the present discussion that Muhammad—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—was not sent to them, but only to the pagan Arabs who lived in the pre-Islamic Age of Ignorance. This claim can be presented in two ways:

1. They may say that he himself never asserted that he had been sent to them; rather, it was his community who made that assertion on his behalf.

2. Or they may say that he did claim to have been sent to them, but that he was lying in so doing. What they state at the beginning of this book points to the first view, while, toward the end, one might say they allude to the second. In truth, however, they did not deny his mission to the Arabs; they denied only his mission to themselves.

With respect to his mission to the Arabs, they neither explicitly affirmed nor denied it. The outward sense of their words nevertheless concedes that he was sent to the Arabs; indeed, they affirmed whatever agreed with their own opinions and rejected whatever contradicted them.

We shall demonstrate that nothing the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, brought can legitimately be used as proof for their position. We will then address both aspects of their claim, showing that nothing in the Quran can be cited to validate their religion in any way—