stronger than they are, and he will deliver the weak who have no supporter, show compassion to the poor and the downtrodden, and prayers and blessings will be invoked upon him at every moment.” (1)

No intelligent person who studies the affairs of empires and prophethoods and who knows the life of Muhammad ﷺ and that of his community after him can doubt that these descriptions apply to none but him and his ummah. They do not fit the Messiah, nor any other prophet. His authority stretched from the Roman Sea—the Mediterranean—to the Persian Sea, and from the rivers Jayhun, Sayhun, and the Euphrates (2) to the farthest edge of the earth in the West.

This corresponds exactly to his ﷺ statement: “The earth was rolled up for me, so I was shown its eastern and western reaches, and my community’s dominion will extend to where it was rolled up for me.” (3)

He is the one upon whom prayers and blessings are invoked at every time and in every prayer—during the five obligatory prayers and beyond. Before him the peoples of the various peninsulas submitted: the inhabitants of the Arabian Peninsula, of the land between the Euphrates and the Tigris, of the Andalusian Peninsula, and of the island of Cyprus. The kings of Persia humbled themselves before him; none remained among them except those who either embraced Islam or paid the jizyah with their own hands in utter submission. This was unlike the Byzantine rulers, among whom were those who neither accepted Islam nor paid the jizyah. Hence the prophecy mentioned the kings of Persia in particular. As for the nations that heard of him and his ummah, they all acknowledged his authority—falling into one of four groups: believers in him, those at peace with him, hypocrites who feigned allegiance, or people who feared him. (4)