The Prophet even quoted this very verse in the letter he sent to Caesar, the king of the Christians—Heraclius, who was then in al-Shām—and we have already mentioned that episode. We have also noted earlier the Almighty’s words:

“so that you may warn a people whose forefathers were never warned, and therefore they are heedless” (Ya-Sin 6),

which indicate only that the Unlettered Arabs had not been warned before; they do not mean that he was not to warn anyone else. In the same way, His words,

“And warn your nearest kinsfolk” (al-Shuʿarāʾ 214),

command him to warn his own clan, yet they do not bar him from warning other Arabs. Likewise, His statement regarding Quraysh,

“So let them worship the Lord of this House, who has fed them against hunger and secured them against fear” (Quraysh 3),

does not prevent people other than Quraysh from being required to worship the Lord of this House. Indeed, Allah has commanded both species—the jinn and humankind—to worship the Lord of this House.

If it is objected, “But in that verse He says nothing about anyone besides the Unlettered, which by the argument from silence—known as mafhūm al-mukhālafah (the contrary implication)—suggests their exclusion,” we reply: that inference is valid only when