and He thus clarified that He has favored some of them over others, for He—the Exalted—has said:

“We have indeed favored some of the prophets over others.” ⦗Al-Isrāʾ 55⦘

The Muslims are unanimously agreed—this being something necessarily known within the religion—that it is obligatory to believe in all the prophets and messengers and in every book that Allah has revealed. Whoever disbelieves in even one prophet whose prophethood is established—such as Abraham, Lot, Moses, David, Solomon, Jonah, or Jesus—is, according to all Muslims, an unbeliever and is treated as the rest of the disbelievers. If such a person is an apostate he is asked to repent; if he repents he is spared, and if he refuses he is executed.

Likewise, anyone who insults a single prophet is, by consensus of the Muslims, also liable to execution. Whatever the Muslims know that any prophet has conveyed, they are obliged to affirm, just as they affirm what Muhammad (may Allah bless him and grant him peace) conveyed, for they know that the reports of the prophets do not contradict one another. As for anything they do not know a prophet to have reported, its status with them is the same as something they do not know Muhammad to have reported—may Allah’s blessings be upon them all. They declare something false only when they know it to be false, and they are not permitted to accept as true anything except what they know to be true. With regard to matters whose truth or falsehood they cannot ascertain, they neither affirm nor deny them, exactly as their Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) instructed them—and this is also what the Messiah commanded them to do.