so that through him I will open blind eyes, unstop deaf ears, and unlock sealed hearts, and they will say: “There is no god but Allah.” (1)

As for his words, “Indeed, this is in the Torah,” he did not intend the specific Torah that is the Book of Moses. The nouns Torah, Gospel, Quran, and Psalms are sometimes used for those particular scriptures and sometimes for the entire genus of revealed books. Thus the term Quran may be used for the Psalms, the term Torah for the Quran, and the term Gospel for the Quran as well. In the sound hadith the Prophet ﷺ said: “The Quran was lightened for David—between the time his mount was saddled and he mounted it, he would have recited the Quran.” (2) What is meant by “the Quran” here is his own scripture, namely the Psalms.

The same applies to the glad tidings mentioned in the Torah: “I will raise up for the Children of Israel a Prophet from among their brothers, upon whom I will send down a Torah like the Torah of Moses.”

Likewise, the description of his community ﷺ in the earlier scriptures reads: “Their Gospels are in their breasts.”

Accordingly, the request, “Tell me about the description of the Messenger of Allah in the Torah,” may refer either to the specific Torah or to the broader category of earlier books. On either reading, ʿAbd Allah ibn ʿAmr answered with something that is found in “the Torah” in that wider sense, for what he cited is not in the particular Torah but in the Book of Isaiah, as we have already quoted from him. They have also rendered it in another translation that includes some additional words: “My servant and My messenger in whom My soul is well pleased,