—all the inhabitants of the earth, the people of scripture and the unlettered alike; and God expressly stated in the Torah that He would raise him up for them, lest they imagine (1) that he was sent only to the Arabs and the illiterate (2). Something is sometimes singled out for mention because the audience needs to hear it explicitly, lest a listener suppose that it is not intended by the general wording or included within it, or to indicate that whatever lies beyond it is even more deserving of the ruling, or for other purposes. Thus, specifying the Children of Israel dispelled the misconception of anyone who thought that he had been sent to the Arabs alone. The Exalted said: “so that you may warn a people to whom no warner came before you” (al-Sajda 32:3; al-Qasas 28:46). Those people were his own folk, and that does not deny that he was also a warner to others. Had you been able to cite any statement in which he claimed to be a messenger to the Arabs exclusively, that would indeed be evidence; but since his own Scripture declares—and both elite and common folk know—that he asserted he was sent to the Children of Israel and to others besides, you have no case.

The Jew said, “All of our Jewish forefathers agree that he made that claim, but the ʿIsāwiyya among us maintain that he is a prophet for the Arabs only; we do not share their view.” Then he turned to the Jew who was with him and said, “We have carried on our lives as Jews, and by God I do not know how we can free ourselves from this Arab—save that, at the very least, we must oblige ourselves never to mention him adversely.”

Muhammad ibn Saʿd said in al-Ṭabaqāt: “Maʿn ibn ʿĪsā narrated to us; Muʿāwiya (3) ibn Ṣāliḥ narrated to us, from Abū Farwa, from Ibn ʿAbbās, that he asked Kaʿb al-Aḥbār, ‘How do you find the description of the Messenger of God, peace and blessings be upon him, in the Torah?’ He replied, ‘We find it: “Muhammad son of ʿAbd Allāh; his birth in Mecca, his emigration to Ṭāba (Medina), and his dominion will be…”’