What all of this is referring to is the one who would emerge from his lineage, for he alone is the person whom God exalted most highly, made into a great nation, and granted a noble people. No offspring of Ishmael was ever blessed, magnified, and marked by these signs except the Messenger of God, ﷺ; his community has filled every horizon and far outnumbered the descendants of Isaac (1).

The Fourth Proof: It is stated in the Torah (2)—in the fifth book—“Moses said to the Children of Israel: Do not obey soothsayers or astrologers; the Lord will raise up for you a prophet from among your brothers, one like me. Obey that prophet” (3).

This promised prophet cannot be from the very stock of the Children of Israel, for—as noted earlier—the “brothers” (4) of a people are not the people themselves. You might say, for example, “Bakr and Taghlib are the two sons of Wa'il; then you would say, ‘Taghlib are the brothers of Bakr, and the descendants of Bakr are the brothers of the descendants of Taghlib’” (5). Yet if you were to say, “The brothers of the descendants of Bakr are the descendants of Bakr,” it would be absurd; and if you told someone, “Bring me a man from among the brothers of the descendants of Bakr ibn Wa'il,” he would have to bring you a man from the descendants of Taghlib ibn Wa'il, not one from the descendants of Bakr (6).

The Fifth Proof (7): what is found in the Gospel, where the Messiah said to the disciples: