And just as ‘His shining forth from Seir’ had to be through the Messiah, so ‘His manifestation from the mountains of Paran’ must be His sending down the Qurʾān to Muhammad—may Allah bless him and grant him peace. The mountains of Paran are the mountains of Mecca.

He said (1): There is no dispute between Muslims and the People of the Book that Paran is Mecca. If they claim it is somewhere else, such a claim is merely another example of their distortion and fabrication.

We say: Is it not written in the Torah that “Abraham settled Hagar and Ishmael in Paran” (2)?

Again, show us the place called Paran from which God made Himself manifest, and the prophet upon whom a scripture was revealed there after Jesus! Are not “manifested” (istaʿlana) and “became manifest” (ʿalana) identical in meaning—both signifying to appear and become plain? Do you know of any religion whose emergence equaled that of Islam, spreading so widely to the farthest east and west?

The scholars of Islam explain that Seir is a mountainous region in greater Syria; from there the Messiah’s prophethood arose. Beside it lies Bethlehem—the village where the Messiah was born—which is still called Seir today, and it is surrounded by mountains that share the same name. The Torah states that the descendants of Esau lived in Seir, and God commanded Moses not to harm them.

Shaykh al-Islam (3) said: On this understanding, the three mountains have been mentioned—Hira, the loftiest height around Mecca, in which the Messenger of Allah—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—first received revelation. Many mountains encircle it, and the entire area is still known as Paran to this