So a people who have unanimously embraced (1) such notions about their very god—what difficulty would they have, then, in saying of His servant and messenger that he is a sorcerer, a liar, a mere earthly king, and the like?!

For this reason one of the kings of India remarked: “As for the Christians, if their enemies from among the religious communities wage jihad against them by the Sacred Law, I hold that they should be opposed by pure reason. Although we do not normally approve of fighting anyone, I make an exception for these folk above every other people on earth, for they have deliberately set themselves against reason, declared open hostility toward it, and broken away from every clear religious and rational interest in the world. They have deemed every impossibility possible and, on that basis, erected a religion that brings no benefit to any sphere of existence; rather, when a rational person follows it he becomes witless, the prudent becomes foolish, the beautiful turns ugly, and the ugly appears beautiful.”

Indeed, one whose foundational creed—instilled in him from childhood—is to wrong the Creator, assail Him, revile Him with the vilest abuse, and attribute to Him qualities that mar His perfect attributes, will unsurprisingly find it easy to wrong a creature and to describe him in terms that distort his noble qualities.

If no duty to strive against these people existed except because of the widespread harm they inflict (2), in its countless forms—just as one is required to kill a creature that is harmful by nature—they would still be worthy of that (3).

The point, then, is that those who chose this doctrine concerning the Lord of all worlds, instead of magnifying, exalting, venerating Him and describing Him as befits Him, are precisely the ones who have chosen unbelief.