day. The wilderness that stretches between Mecca and Mount Sinai is called the Wilderness of Paran, and no one can truthfully claim that after the Messiah any scripture was revealed in that land or that a prophet was sent there. It is therefore evident that the words “His manifestation from the mountains of Paran” can refer to nothing but the sending of Muhammad—may Allah bless him and grant him peace.

The Almighty mentioned this in the Torah in chronological order (1): first the sending down of the Torah, then the Gospel, and finally the Qur’an. These books are Allah’s light and guidance. Of the first He said, “He came and appeared”; of the second, “He shone forth”; and of the third, “He manifested Himself.” Thus the advent of the Torah was like the breaking of dawn, the descent of the Gospel like the sun’s rise, and the revelation of the Qur’an like the sun’s full ascent into the sky. For that reason He said, “and He manifested Himself from the mountains of Paran,” because through Muhammad—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—Allah’s light and guidance spread throughout the East and the West more widely than through the preceding two books, just as sunlight fills every horizon once the sun has risen high and stands midway in the heavens (2).

Accordingly, Allah described him as “a radiant lamp” (Qur’an 33:46), whereas He described the sun as “a blazing lamp” (Qur’an 78:13). Creation’s need for the radiant lamp is greater than its need for the blazing lamp, for the latter is required only at certain times, whereas the radiant lamp is needed at every time and in every place—night and day, openly and in secret.

Allah, exalted be He, referred to these three locations in His words: “By the fig and the olive, and Mount Sinai, and this secure city” (Qur’an 95:1–3). The fig and the olive represent the Holy Land from which the Messiah was sent and where the Gospel was revealed to him; Mount Sinai is the mountain upon which Allah spoke directly to Moses and called out to him