…the disbeliever” [Al-Baqarah 2:258].

It is also said: When Muhammad ﷺ was confronted about the Resurrection by the liar Ubayy ibn Khalaf, the man brought a decayed bone, crumbled it in his hand and sneered, “Who will revive these bones when they have turned to dust?” [Yā Sīn 36:78]. Allah then sent down the decisive proof: “Say, He will revive them Who produced them the first time, and He is, of all creation, All-Knowing” [Yā Sīn 36:79]. Ubayy turned away, stunned by the evidence of his prophethood.

I say: This is a still more conclusive argument, for it proves the Resurrection by reference to the initial act of creation. The One who brought the creatures into existence when they were nothing is surely able to re-create them, as He says: “Is not He who created the heavens and the earth able to create the likes of them? Yes indeed; for He is the Supreme Creator, the All-Knowing” [Yā Sīn 36:81]. In other words, He will restore them just as He originated them. Elsewhere He says, “able to give life to the dead” [Al-Aḥqāf 46:33], and, “He is the One who originates creation, then brings it back, and that is even easier for Him” [Ar-Rūm 30:27].

Most scholars hold that knowledge of the Resurrection is acquired through reflection rather than innate instinct, even though its certainty is acknowledged. By contrast, the tyrant who argued with Abraham was a willful denier, for recognition of the Creator is planted in every natural disposition; only a corrupted nature treats it as mere speculation. Some theologians nonetheless classify awareness of the Creator as a matter of reasoning, not self-evidence. In any case, his claim to give life and death is rejected by intellect and revelation alike, which is why Abraham challenged him to make the sun rise from the west—“So the disbeliever was confounded, and Allah does not guide the wrongdoing people” [Al-Baqarah 2:258].

Here one should add that Allah empowered Muhammad ﷺ to dispose of this obstinate foe when the latter faced the Prophet on the Day of Uḥud. The Prophet pierced him with his blessed hand, thrusting a spear into his collar-bone so that he toppled repeatedly from his horse. His comrades cried, “Woe to you, what has happened?” He replied, “By Allah, what I feel inside would kill all the people of Dhū al-Majāz were it to befall them. Did he not say, ‘Rather, I shall kill him’ (1)? By Allah, had he only spat on me he would have destroyed me!” This Ubayy—may Allah curse him—had readied a horse and a spear to slay the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, boasting, “Rather, I shall kill him, if Allah wills (2).” And so it came to pass at Uḥud.

Abū Nuʿaym continued: If it is said, “Abraham (peace be upon him) shattered his people’s idols out of zeal for Allah,” the reply is that Muhammad ﷺ demolished three hundred and sixty idols set up around the Kaʿbah. He merely pointed at them and they crumbled. Through the isnād of ʿAbd Allah al-ʿUmari, from Nāfiʿ, from Ibn ʿUmar, it is related that on the day of the Conquest of Mecca the Messenger of Allah ﷺ stood by the House while three hundred and sixty idols, which Satan had fixed with lead and copper, surrounded it. Whenever he approached one with the tip of his staff it fell without his touching it, and he recited: “Truth has come and falsehood has vanished; surely falsehood is ever bound to vanish” [Al-Isrāʾ 17:81]. They toppled on their faces, whereupon he ordered that they be dragged to the valley and cast away.