An example of the unbelievers’ statements about the prophets is what the Exalted has cited in His words:

“Blessed is He who sent down the Criterion to His servant so that he might be a warner to all peoples—He to whom belongs the dominion of the heavens and the earth, who has taken no son, who has no partner in sovereignty, and who created everything and ordained it with precise measure. Yet they have taken besides Him deities that create nothing while they themselves are created; they can neither ward off harm from themselves nor bring themselves benefit, and they have no control over death, life, or resurrection. Those who disbelieve say, ‘This is nothing but a lie he has fabricated, and other people have helped him with it.’ Thus have they committed injustice and uttered falsehood. And they say, ‘Tales of the ancients—he has had them written down, and they are recited to him morning and evening.’ Say: ‘It has been sent down by the One who knows the secrets of the heavens and the earth; truly, He is ever Forgiving, Merciful.’ And they say, ‘What sort of messenger is this who eats food and walks in the marketplaces? Why has an angel not been sent down to him to act as a warner alongside him? Or a treasure cast down to him? Or a garden for him to eat from?’ The wrongdoers say, ‘You are only following a man under a spell.’ Look how they coin parables for you and thereby go astray, so that they cannot find any path.” (al-Furqan 1–9)

He—glorious is He—makes plain that the unbelievers coined for him analogies that are all false; through them they strayed from the truth, and once they had gone astray they could find no path back to it. To strike such parables for him necessarily entails likening him to other people and placing him among categories to which he does not belong, categories whose members in no way resemble him—such as their saying,

“This is nothing but a lie he has invented, and other people have helped him with it” (al-Furqan 4).

They portrayed him as a liar who calls on others to assist him in the fabrications he concocts, and they likened him to someone who—