The Trustworthy Spirit brought it down and taught it to the chief of all messengers, Muhammad—may Allah’s blessings and peace be upon him and his family. Muhammad then delivered it to his community, and his community has passed it on, generation after generation, until it reached us. We write it, recite it, and commit it to memory, yet it remains the speech of Allah: it is not our speech, nor the speech of the Prophet ﷺ, nor the speech of Gabriel.

The Trustworthy Spirit is Gabriel. He is so called because he is utterly reliable—he neither alters nor substitutes anything. Entrusted with what Allah assigned to him, he cannot be accused of treachery, contrary to what the Jews claim when they say, “Gabriel is our enemy,” or to the allegation of the extremists among the Shiʿah who say, “The message was intended for ʿAlī, but Gabriel betrayed the trust and delivered it to Muhammad ﷺ.” Such assertions belie Allah Himself, for Allah has named Gabriel “trustworthy.”

Concerning the Jews, Allah revealed: “Whoever is an enemy to Gabriel—it is he who has brought it down upon your heart by Allah’s permission, confirming what came before it” (Al-Baqarah 2:97). He then said: “Whoever is an enemy to Allah, His angels, His messengers, Gabriel, or Michael—then, indeed, Allah is an enemy to the disbelievers” (Al-Baqarah 2:98).

Whoever shows enmity toward Gabriel—or toward any angel—finds Allah as his enemy. Likewise, whoever shows enmity toward any messenger is a disbeliever, and whoever shows enmity toward one of Allah’s allies is openly challenging Allah to war, as is authentically reported in the hadith (1). Thus, Gabriel was the one who taught it