This principle, then, overturns the argument advanced by the more reasonable among the People of the Book, and all the more forcefully invalidates the claim of their uninformed followers. Many—indeed, most—of the educated among them venerate Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him, because he called to the pure monotheism of Allah Most High, forbade the worship of idols, confirmed the Torah, the Gospel, and the messengers who came before him, and because of the manifest grandeur of the Quran he brought, the beauty of the sacred law he established, the virtues of the community that believed in him, and the signs, proofs, miracles, and tokens of divine favor that have appeared at his hands and theirs.

Yet despite all that they say: “He was sent to a people other than us; he was a just king who exercised equitable governance; he nonetheless acquired knowledge from the learning of the People of the Book and others, and on the basis of his own learning and rank fashioned a code for them, just as our eminent forebears framed the statutes and ordinances we now possess.”

Whatever they may assert along these lines, it does not make them believers in him, nor does it permit them, on that basis alone, to cite any of his statements as authoritative proof. For it is established by recurrent, mass-transmitted reports—known to every nation and every sect—that he declared: he is the Messenger of Allah to all people and that Allah sent down the Quran upon him. If he is truthful in that claim, then whoever denies a single word of what he brought has denied the Messenger of Allah, and whoever denies the Messenger of Allah is a disbeliever. But if he is not truthful in that claim, then he is not a messenger of Allah at all; rather, he is a liar—and whoever lies about Allah, saying, “Allah has sent me with this,” when Allah did not send him, cannot be cited as an authority in any of his statements.